


Walker’s Eleven

by Moonlight Pilot (Frea_O)



Category: Chuck (TV)
Genre: Bad Puns, Blatant Disrepect to Frank Sinatra, F/M, Fugitives, Homage, Humor, conmen, nerd humor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-01
Updated: 2012-03-09
Packaged: 2017-11-01 17:02:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 26
Words: 102,069
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/359194
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Frea_O/pseuds/Moonlight%20Pilot
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sarah Walker never got out of the con game or became a spy, and now she's on her final con. What happens when true love and betrayal get added to the mix? Twists, turns, and Jeffster!  Not based on the movie.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Sarah the Porn Star

“And last, but certainly not least…”

_Just get it over with already._

“Actually, pretty much the farthest thing from least ever, really…”

_In fifty years, when he finishes this sentence, where will I be? Probably dead. Maybe of boredom. Fitting._

“IDs!”

Connor Morton liked to hear himself talk. As a trait for a crew-leader, it was distressingly normal. Even the great Jack Burton, as he called himself, shared this quality, but when Jack Burton spoke, he at least had the benefit of being interesting. Connor Morton fell several very important steps short of that. He was also full of himself, thought he was god’s gift to mankind, and was four inches shorter than Sarah Walker, as she called herself for this one last and final con. _Three strikes_ , Sarah thought, _and you’re out_.

She kept her face pleasant, her expression thoughtful, her eyes guarded, as Connor continued to lead staff meeting after staff meeting. It was like he didn’t even trust the team he’d gathered, though Sarah knew that they were the best. She was the best, after all, and she’d selected this final con with care. It didn’t involve actually conning anybody to his or her face, which she liked. Just a simple bit of thievery, deep cover. And since she was the best, she knew everybody sitting around the fancy conference room table in the offices of Morton, Platte and Gideon was the best at whatever he or she did.

 _Even Connor is the best, unfortunately_. He was a good crew-leader, despite being something of a milquetoast. Oh, and constantly wanting to get into her pants. That was a little less than cool.

She caught the wallet—a buff-colored, streamlined, feminine wallet—that slid across the table. As she did so, she happened to catch the eye of Ben Arnold. He gave her a wink. Since it was Ben, she gave him a tiny smile back.

That smile faded when she opened the wallet. What the hell? “Are you kidding?” she asked.

Connor had been waiting for it. He exploded into manfully-muffled snickering. Pervert.

“This is a joke, right?”

Her neighbor, Terrence, leaned over to get a look at her new identity, and began giggling as well. He was a reedy man, slender as a whip. She imagined she could fit one hand around his neck and squeeze, and the world might be a better place. If only.

“What’s the matter, Walker?” Connor asked. “Something wrong with the new name?”

“Yes, something’s wrong with the new name! I’m an office manager, not a prostitute!” Sarah tossed the wallet away in disgust. “Candace Galore? Really? That’s what you brain donors came up with? I bet you think she goes by Candy!”

“You have to admit, Candy Galore does have a ring to it,” the computer nerd in the back mumbled.

“Shut up, Scopes,” Sarah said.

That set off a new round of giggling. Last con, Sarah reminded herself. In less than two months, she would be somewhere with her brand new—and last—identity, no longer trading on the name she’d stolen from the government. All of this would be nothing but a very annoying memory. In the meantime, she glowered. “Change it,” she said.

“IDs are the responsibility of the crew-leader,” Connor reminded her, his nasally voice almost a sing-song. “You have to take what you get. That’s the rules.”

There weren’t technically rules. They were law-breakers and criminals, even surrounded by the opulence of the law offices that Connor had set up for the con headquarters as they were. Sure, they looked like an average law staff. Ben Arnold had on a lawyer suit, Sarah had dressed in a business suit for the day, Scopes would always look like an anemic computer nerd, Terrence was young enough to play a first-year associate, and Connor looked oily and snaky enough to be any dirtbag type of lawyer. But this group was just another crew of scoundrels and thieves, picked because they were the best at what they did, like her.

Her father would approve of this crew, she knew. Enough of the old-school con beliefs present in Ben Arnold and her legacy, with an infusion of new technology from Terrence and Scopes. Connor had all the makings of a classic crew-leader. _Even if he is a perverted creep_. Sarah would have picked another woman to be on the crew, but that was just her and her desire not to be surrounded by so much stupid testosterone and Candy Galore jokes all the time.

“Those may be ‘the rules,’“ she said, making air-quotes, “but I’m not following them. Give me a new ID or I walk, right now, and you find another stuntman.”

Connor’s face turned ugly very fast. It wasn’t that surprising, given that his face—pointy, kind of pale, with milky blue eyes—was pretty ugly to start.

“Boys,” Ben finally spoke, his gravelly voice quiet and authoritative, stopping a Connor tantrum before it could start. “Give her the real ID now, please.”

 _Thanks, Ben_.

Connor’s scowl rose to childish levels.

Ben simply gave him such a mild look that Connor sighed and pulled out an identical wallet to the first. He tossed this across. The second ID wasn’t as bad. They had still used a weird spelling for Stacee, but Sarah could live with that. Stacee Kemp, she thought, studying her own picture on the faked ID. They had added a couple of years to her real age—thank you for that, Connor—but she was no longer a porn star. She could deal with that.

“Now, that that little drama is out of the way,” Connor said, glaring pointedly at Sarah, who shrugged back at him, “time for some bad news.”

Everybody at the table groaned.

“Yes, that’s right. Tomorrow morning, Morton, Platte and Gideon goes into full operation, which means that everybody will have to put in something resembling regular office hours. We’ve got a whole building to fool, people.” Connor crossed his arms over his chest and stared out the windows. Vidalia Park spread out below their building like a green blanket. The water of the surprisingly deep waters of Holdman Pond actually looked blue for once in the morning sunlight. “It won’t be so bad,” he said over his shoulder, almost absently. “We’re getting internet and an XBox set up this afternoon, so there will be something to do. And we can take long lunches.”

Since cons were 90% waiting anyway, that didn’t bother Sarah. The others, particularly Terence, grumbled, though. She knew how fond they were of two-bit dive bars. Hauling themselves out of bed before eleven in the morning usually took a miracle, whereas she was awake by 5:30 every morning, and on her run by 5:42.

“Speaking of which,” Connor went on, “Sarah, I’ll need you back at the office at two to meet with the computer tech installing everything for us.”

“What?” Sarah straightened. “Computers are Scopes’s job.”

“Normally, yes. But Scopes has a prior engagement—”

_With a porn website, no doubt._

“And you are the secretary for the law offices, so this falls under your jurisdiction.” Connor smirked. “It’s for the cover, Stacee.”

I hate you. Sarah let that comfort her. “Fine. What time is this technician arriving?”

“Appointment’s set for two. The rest of you are at liberty for the day. See you tomorrow morning, bright and early.” Connor’s smirk widened to a smile. “Whoever’s late has to pay for the first round after work, remember that.”

  


* * *

  


Because she didn’t actually want to spend any more time with her coworkers than she had to, Sarah slipped out the door before Connor could catch her up in conversation, or Terrence could hit on her, or Scopes could stare at her with those weird, unfocused eyes. She made it to the elevator before the others and pushed the “Close Door” button a few times to make sure she had the cart to herself. The offices were on the fifth floor of the Petersen Building between Burbank and Van Nuys, but she stared at the fourth floor button all the way down. _Less than two months_.

When she exited the elevator, she smiled at the guard and joined the crowd pounding the pavement on the way to lunch. She had to be careful not to stay out in the August heat for too long, otherwise her nice clothes—Stacee Kemp’s nice clothes—would start to wilt. _Can’t have that now, can we?_

“Ahem,” said a voice at her elbow, and Sarah turned slightly. Ben must have taken the stairs down. He was taller than her, grizzled but fit, comfortably in his mid-sixties. Fittingly, he even looked a bit like Robert Redford. One of the few old conmen left. He’d told her once, when she had come to him after her father’s arrest, that there were bold conmen, and there were old conmen, but there were no bold, old conmen. “Buy you lunch?”

“Sure,” Sarah said. “But how does Mary feel about you taking younger women to lunch?”

“She sends her love, as always.” Ben’s eyes twinkled. “She’s on a job in Barcelona, otherwise she would probably come to lunch. She’s excited that you’re on my team.”

“And how are Matt and Allie?”

“They’re good. Allie’s wedding’s in a couple of months, and Matt’s in his final year of medical school.”

“Does it hurt that your kids went straight?”

“Not at all. I’m proud of them, misguided decisions and all. Matt’s still single, you know.” This was said with a nudge.

Sarah laughed. She liked Matt Arnold well enough, but there had never been a spark there for them. Plus, he’d seen her as Jenny Burton, and the fewer people that remembered that stage, the better. “Don’t get started on that. This is my last job. I’m going straight, and I’m not sure the world is ready for two ex-con artists in a relationship.”

“Ah, well.” They headed across a crosswalk together. “You and Matt would make such beautiful babies, and if you think I’m the only one saying so, call your father. He’ll set you straight.”

Sarah shook head. She and Matt Arnold were a year apart in age, so the idea that they would eventually marry and form the ultimate con-artist dynasty was not new. Matt had surprised everybody, however, by declaring at eighteen that he wanted to be a veterinarian.

And now Sarah Walker, Jenny Burton, Rebecca Frankel, she with one face and a thousand identities, was going to follow in Matt’s deserter footsteps. She didn’t want to be a veterinarian. She had no idea what she wanted to do. All she knew was what she didn’t want to do: she didn’t want to spend the next few years dealing with people like Terrence, Scopes, and Connor.

Ben seemed to read her thoughts as they headed toward a sushi place. “Don’t let them get to you,” he said, holding the door open for her. “They’re young, puppies, at the most. Before long, they’ll learn the value of teamwork, or they won’t. If it’s the former, then good for us. The latter? Well, good for us because it means they’ll probably get caught soon.”

“Hopefully after this job is over,” Sarah said.

“Obviously. But in the meantime, don’t let them get to you.”

“Yes, Uncle Ben.”

Ben scowled, letting Sarah lead as they were directed to their table at the back of the restaurant. “I hate it when you call me that. It makes me feel old.”

“Weren’t you just pining for grandchildren?”

Ben glared. Sarah laughed and nodded at the hostess as the two of them took their seats. “Sorry,” she said, picking up her menu. “I’ll stop messing with you. Do you think it’s too early to get some Sake? After that meeting, I could use some.” Maybe they could leave the bottle.

“Well, I can’t let you drink alone.” Ben smiled and waved the waitress over.

  


* * *

  


Her lunch with Ben ran over, mostly because they got caught up in stories from the old days. Even if Sarah had heard them all before, she enjoyed hearing about the things her father had gotten up to as a young man in the world of confidence men and crooked cops. He had always had so much _fun_ , she thought as she rushed back into the lobby of the Petersen Building at 2:05. She hadn’t had nearly that much fun working cons since she was ten and there was the promise of ice cream at the end of the job.

This was her last job; maybe she would have a scoop of Cherry Garcia at the end to celebrate. _And it will be delicious_.

“Ma’am.” The security guard recognized her, if not by name, by face at least. _Not that hard to do, not with a face like mine_. He waved her over, as Sarah fought back the instinct to run away from him. People in security and police uniforms always made her nervous. Even when she had to don a cop’s uniform for a job, she was never fully at ease. But the security guard smiled at her. “There’s somebody here from the Nerd Herd, looking for a representative from your office. I sent him up to the fifth floor.”

“Nerd Herd?” Sarah asked, her brow wrinkling.

“Yes, the computer repair and installation people? From Buy More?” The security guard looked confused. He was young, barely out of high school, but he was also burly. He had arms like tree trunks. No question how he got the job. “He said he had an appointment?”

“Oh, right, I forgot.” Sarah blasted the guard with her megabolt smile, the one she usually saved for desperate situations. He probably wouldn’t be able to think straight for a couple of hours. “Thanks for doing that, ah,” she searched for his name tag, “Wes.”

“No problem, ma’am.” Instead of getting flustered, he returned her smile. _Might be gay_. Sarah headed for the elevator.

Connor had gotten a the Nerd Herd to install the system in the office? _How cheap_. Sarah stepped off of the elevator and hurried down the hall. She rounded the corner, expecting to see perhaps the twin brother of Scopes (though hopefully the less Euro-trash brother) waiting outside the office.

She was wrong, she saw. The Nerd Herd technician wore a tie, for one thing. Scopes had never worn a tie in his life, nor had he ever donned a shirt with fewer than three stains. This technician seemed reasonably-well put together: his clothes weren’t wrinkled, his hair had at least been combed, and he had a silver suitcase by his feet that made him look professional. He straightened when he saw her approach, and he had to straighten quite a bit, since he looked well over six feet tall. _Wonder how long it took him to grow into that_. “Hi, I’m looking for a representative from, uh,” and he glanced down at a clipboard in his hand, “Morton, Platte and Gideon?”

“That’s us. I’m guessing you’re my…Nerd Herd guy?” _Computer guy? Technician? Nerd?_

“Nerd Herder, yeah.” Said Nerd Herder smiled as he held out a hand to introduce himself. “Hi, I’m Chuck.”


	2. Sarah the Secretary

“It’s this way,” Sarah said, and pushed open the front door of the office. Connor had been smart in some things, at least. He had taken the time to find an interior decorator for the office so that, no matter the crew that would inhabit it from day to day over the next few weeks, it at least looked professional. She held the door open, since the Nerd Herder was holding both a clipboard and a briefcase, but he’d juggled the clipboard under his arm, and grabbed the door from her, motioning with his head that she should go first. “Con—um, my boss, he told you what needed to be done?”

“Got the order sheet right here,” Chuck confirmed, then paused before adding, somewhat carefully, “ma’am.”

 _Do I really look old enough to be a ma’am_? “Okay. Well, the TV’s right there, it’s not hooked up yet, that I know of, and the computers are in all of the offices and on the desk out here, you can just wander wherever you feel like.”

“It’s okay, I got it.” Chuck smiled and set his briefcase by the TV. He shuffled his feet, like she made him uncomfortable—which she probably did, Sarah thought absently as she moved to what would be her desk. Geeks, nerds, grown men, teenagers, sometimes they had problems interacting socially around her. It could be used to her advantage, and had been several times. She probably could have talked a guy like Chuck out of his money five times over already. He shuffled his feet again. “I’m sorry, you know somebody named Scopes? In all seriousness?”

“Yes, well, the man himself is weirder than the name. Do you need anything? I can get you a water and I think we’ve stocked the fridge with some sodas and Red Cow or whatever it is Scopes likes to drink.”

She didn’t expect Chuck the Nerd Herder to smile and shake his head. “Scopes,” he said under his breath, though Sarah heard him. He cleared his throat and avoided looking directly at her eyes, definitely a tell that he was nervous. “Do you mean Red Bull?”

Sarah threw away the company’s first piece of snail mail, a coupon mailer from a nearby grocery store. “It’s in a little blue and gray can and it has a red…thing on it. That’s all I know.”

“Definitely Red Bull, then, and no thanks, I’m good.” Chuck gestured vaguely to the TV. “I’ll just get started.”

“Okay. Well, if you change your mind, the fridge is back there.” Sarah gestured toward the break room. She sat down at her desk and grabbed the magazine she’d brought on her way back from lunch. If she had been alone, she would have propped her feet up on the desk. But since she had Chuck there, she had to at least appear somewhat couth, like an actual secretary.

Out of habit, she studied him out of the corner of her eye as she read. He had decided to tackle hooking up the TV first and from the way he maneuvered the Xbox and all of those components and wires and things, he really wasn’t new to video gaming. It had to figure, she thought, given that he wore a short-sleeved white shirt and grey tie that literally said “Nerd” on the pocket protector. She wondered how he would get along with Scopes. They had computer stuff in common, Sarah decided, but not well. Chuck, for instance, understood what a shower was—she’d caught a whiff of Irish Spring as they had walked in the door—and Scopes already had posters of naked ladies hiding in his office. She wondered if Chuck would accidentally discover any of them while setting up the network. Should she warn him? He seemed like the type that might blush.

 _Nah_.

She focused back on her magazine. When the TV blared on, she jumped a little, and managed to cover up that reaction in time as Chuck looked over his shoulder, grinning like he hoped she might share a conspiracy or joke with him. “Check out this picture quality,” he said.

The sharks swimming across the screen did indeed look real. Sarah knew that much from a con gone bad, so froze a little. Shark Week was her least favourite week of the year. “Is that—”

“It’s from a Buy More Blu-Ray installation disc. You’re going to have to get the satellite hooked up by the company.” Chuck fiddled with the remote, and the sharks became a high-def picture of a field of grain. “But seriously, this TV, as the Captain would say, is awesome.”

“The Captain?” _Nerds have ranks_?

“Oh, sorry.” Chuck flashed a sheepish grin. “My sister’s boyfriend. We call him Captain Awesome.”

“Captain Awesome,” Sarah repeated. _That’s a new one_.

“Yeah, well, everything he does is awesome.” Chuck turned off the TV and loaded the rest of the wires he hadn’t used into his briefcase. Apparently, he was finished with setting up the TV. “Sky-diving, bungee-jumping…flossing.”

Sarah let out a genuine laugh, and surprised herself. “He sounds awesome,” she said.

“He has his moments. I’m going to go set up the router, and then I’ll be out of your hair. Uh, which office did you say it was?”

Her attention back on the magazine, Sarah pointed at Scopes’s dirty haven.

“Got it,” Chuck said, and disappeared into the office quickly enough to let Sarah know she still made him nervous. She smiled at the magazine and paid him no more mind.

  


* * *

  


“And then what happened?”

“I put the towel back on, he set down the remote, and we agreed to never speak of it again.” Carly Ross spoke with such sincerity that she could make oil sheiks believe every word she said—and she had. She was one of the best in the game, semi-retired because of it, and she had made L.A. her permanent home.

She also looked like a college student, Sarah thought. It didn’t help that she would never top five feet tall, and she had a button nose, and outside of the con life, her uniform seemed to consist of jeans and T-shirts or sweaters depending on the weather. She’d at least thrown on a peasant top in concession of going to a bar tonight, but she still looked pitifully underdressed next to the crowds of bar-goers with their L.A. fashions.

Carly didn’t seem to mind. She was richer than anybody else in the joint.

“But the duck went where, again?” Sarah asked, shouting a little to be heard over the rock stylings of whatever live band it was currently murdering Bon Jovi’s legacy.

Carly laughed. “Didn’t you hear me? We agreed to never speak of it again!”

“But you _just_ told me the story—”

“Literalist, literalist.” Carly rolled her eyes good-naturedly and tipped her beer back to get the final swallow. She heaved a sigh. “For all I know, the duck slipped out the back and the neighbor decided they wanted Peking Duck for dinner that night.”

“Poor duck,” Sarah said. “Want another?” She nodded at the empty beer, as her Cosmopolitan had been empty for a few minutes, but she hadn’t wanted to leave in the middle of Carly’s story.

Carly glanced around the bar. It was jam-packed for a Thursday, people at the standing tables forced close together, and a crowd three-deep at the bar. “Yeah, I was going to offer to get the next round, but I don’t think I’d be able to get through the mob.”

“It’s on me,” Sarah said. She liked Carly. She had few friends in the world, few people that actually got to see any facet of who she truly was outside of the cons, and even fewer who actually liked what they found. Carly could be a bit abrupt at times, and could get them in trouble whenever she grew too bored, but she was a good friend to meet for drinks occasionally. When the office had gone for drinks, Sarah had sent Carly a text, asking if she wanted to come along, as Ben didn’t like bars and Sarah didn’t want to deal with the rest of her crew by herself.

“Oh, wait, looks like your new crew-leader has got a round of shots,” Carly said, drawing Sarah’s attention to the table Connor and the others had gotten in the back. “And he’s got some for us. Sweet!”

Tequila, Sarah saw, her excellent eyesight helping her out from this distance. “Pass,” she started to say, but her eye caught something by the front door. A tall something. “Actually, why don’t you head on over?” she asked.

Always quick on the uptake, Carly hopped up on her toes to follow Sarah’s line of sight. “Not your usual,” she said after a couple of seconds. “Not metro at all.”

“Hey!”

“What? It’s true. You prefer the metrosexual like none other. It’s made me wonder about you a couple of times.” Carly grinned to show that she wasn’t serious.

“Evan wasn’t metro!”

“He wore a scarf.”

“So?”

“Never mind.” Carly nodded over at the topic of discussion. “Who is he?”

“He did some computer work at the office the other day,” Sarah said, waving a hand. “I’m just going to over to say hi. I doubt he even remembers who I am.”

Carly glanced between Sarah and Chuck the Nerd Herder, who had come in with a friend and was making his way to a table full of people in short-sleeved white shirts and green polos. “Right,” she drawled, rolling her eyes. “No way a guy like that would remember somebody like you.”

Sarah laughed and pushed her empty Cosmopolitan glass away. “You’re profiling again,” she accused.

“‘Course I am. It’s what makes me so good at my job. But seriously, you’re like a geek’s dream—you’re tall, you’re blond, God likes you more than me since he actually gave you boobs.” Carly looked down at her own flat chest and sighed. “Go on, make your geek’s day, I’ll hang with your crew.”

“I’m just going to say hi,” Sarah repeated, but she grinned over at her friend as she began to thread her way through the bar. Carly would be fine hanging with the crew without her. Carly, for some reason, didn’t actually seem to mind Scopes, Terrence was too in awe of her to bother her, and Connor wasn’t an asshole to her.

She really was just going to say hi to Chuck. She knew she made him nervous, even though he’d been perfectly warm and polite when he had left the office the other day, telling her to call the Nerd Herd if there were any problems with the install. She had given him very high marks in everything on the customer survey because he obviously had been very good at his job. There had been nary an electronic hiccup in the office since, which rarely happened in the other long-term con offices she’d worked in.

So she gave him a brilliant smile as she approached.

He dropped his beer. Thankfully, it was only a couple of inches over the table, so all it did was slosh beer all over his hand. Even so, it was adorable.

“Hi,” Sarah said, finally getting free from the crowd. She knew every single person at the table was staring at her, but she ignored them out of long practice. “Remember me?”

“S-Sarah, right?” Chuck asked, gulping nervously. “From M-Morton, Pratt and…the law offices? Last week?”

“That’s me.” Sarah’s grin widened. He really had remembered her. She tried to ignore Carly’s “duh” snort in the back of her mind. “I saw you from over there, and I thought I’d come say hi.”

Chuck’s mouth worked soundlessly a couple of times, until the friend he’d come in with, a short, bearded man, tugged on his sleeve and muttered something to him. Chuck shot the friend a look and turned an uncomfortable grin toward Sarah. “Um. Right. Hi. Everything good at the office? I didn’t screw up the install, did I?” The last came out with real worry attached.

“No, not at all. Everything’s great. I really am over here just to say ‘hi.’“

She could tell that Chuck wasn’t sure what to think of that. He peered at her as though she might be crazy. “Oh,” he said after a minute, as if completely mystified as to why she would do such a thing.

She also didn’t want to head back to a table with Connor any time soon, but it looked like Chuck might be the type that needed a prod or three. “Are you going to introduce me to your friends?” Sarah asked, her eyebrows high.

“My fr—oh. Right. Them.” Looking uncertain, Chuck waved at the table. “Sarah, these are the guys. Guys, this is Sarah. She’s—uh, yeah—she’s the Wednesday install from last week.”

“Wait a minute.” The bearded man at Chuck’s elbow finally spoke. “ _You’re_ the Wednesday install from last week?” Sarah raised an eyebrow, wondering if this was somehow a bad thing, but the bearded one turned to his friend. “Dude, Chuck, she is way more than ‘attractive, I guess!’“

“ _Morgan_ ,” Chuck hissed, and Sarah fought back a laugh.

Apparently, Morgan the Bearded Man wasn’t done. “‘Attractive, I guess’ is Chuck-speak for freaking hot,” he told Sarah, and seemed to realize what he was saying. He followed it up by looking down and muttering, “Whoops.”

Sarah had to laugh, even though Chuck had gone roughly the shade of a tomato. “You think I’m hot?” she asked him, flipping the end of her hair coyly. Carly was right: Chuck wasn’t her usual type, but he just seemed like a lot of fun. Especially the way he was so cutely embarrassed right now.

Indeed, Chuck shot her almost a panicked look, and she nearly burst out laughing. “I didn’t say you were hot!”

“So you don’t think I’m hot?” Sarah asked. _I should really stop being evil to this guy, as he really seems like a nice guy, but it’s just too much fun_.

“I…” Chuck looked as if he wished the floor might swallow him whole. “Well, you’re not ugly,” he said, almost defensively. “I mean, you’re a very attractive woman, Sarah, and I—I don’t know why people use ‘hot’ to describe people, as we’re generally all around 98.6 degrees and—it’s not like you’re a zombie or anything, okay? You’re pret—er, you look okay, I guess.”

Sarah let the ramble go on until it ran out of steam, even though she caught the various nerds around Chuck’s table slapping their palms into their foreheads. When Chuck finally shut up with an annoyed look, she leaned forward slightly, grinning. “Chuck?”

“Yeah? I mean, uh, yes?”

“This is the part where you buy me a drink.”

“It is?” Surprise coloured Chuck’s face. Then slowly, by stages, a smile of realization spread over his face. “Really?”

Sarah just nodded and made an _mmm-hmm_ noise.

“I’ll be right back.”

Morgan and Sarah exchanged glances and waited for it. Indeed, Chuck came back ten seconds later, clearing his throat. “Uh, right, I forgot to ask—what are you drinking tonight?”

She was drinking Cosmos, but they were oddly expensive at this bar, and Chuck was on a Buy More salary. “Corona Light, with a lime,” she said.

“Awesome.” Chuck vanished into the crowd again, leaving her with a table full of nerds, and Morgan.

She picked him because he didn’t seem as scary as the others, and with a little hair styling product, he might actually look pretty decent. One of the nerds seemed to have a lazy eye that hadn’t left her chest, his oily friend had spent the past two minutes preening, and there was a tall geek with an afro that hadn’t said a single word. He was bopping his head to the music. Sarah figured it was better to leave him to his own devices.

“So, Sarah,” Morgan said, picking up Chuck’s beer and taking a healthy swallow, “what is it you do?”

“I’m a legal secretary,” Sarah said, hoping he didn’t actually ask anything about that. All she had done the previous week was play solitaire on her computer or read magazines while her coworkers played Xbox. She looked down at Morgan’s green polo shirt. “I guess you work with Chuck?”

“Yeah, we rule the Buy More.” Morgan flicked his hair out of his eyes and gave her a cocky smile. “My boy Chuck and me, that’s our stomping ground. You won’t find a better Nerd Herder than Chuck. I’ve never seen him face a computer problem he couldn’t fix. It’s like he has magic hands or something.”

 _Interesting_.

“Does he now?” Sarah leaned an elbow against the table and smiled at everybody. As usual, the smile was met with nothing but shocked and startled expressions. She turned her attention back to Morgan, and ignored the way he had to blink quickly to bring himself around to reality.

 _Holy hell, nerds are fun_.

“Yeah,” Morgan said, and launched into a story about how Chuck had defeated a computer virus by himself the week before. Even though she only understood one word in six, Sarah listened diligently. She had no idea why. This wasn’t her normal crowd, this wasn’t her normal procedure. She usually let the men do the chasing; she liked being the mysterious one. But Chuck had made her laugh in the office the other day, with his joke about Captain Awesome, and she needed something that made her laugh after dealing with Connor all the time.

So when Morgan had finished his story, she leaned in again. “So does Chuck have a girlfriend?”

“Does Chuck have a gi…No, milady.” A wide grin spread over Morgan’s face. “Well, there was this one girl at Stanford, Jill, but she broke his heart pretty bad when she—”

“ _Ahem_ ,” said a voice behind them, and Sarah and Morgan turned to find Chuck back, holding two Coronas. He shot Morgan a significant look.

Morgan immediately got the message. “What’s that, sir?” he called over his shoulder. “Xerox machines! On it!” He scarpered, taking the rest of Chuck’s beer with him.

Chuck had apparently anticipated that, for he kept one of the Coronas as he handed the other to Sarah. “That was quick,” she remarked, taking the beer.

“Well, yeah, the bartender here is a little afraid of the white shirt and tie combo.” Chuck fiddled with his tie, as an example. “We have this theory that Jeff broke him a few months ago.” He nodded over her shoulder, and Sarah turned to see that the Jeff in question was the nerd with the lazy eye…that was currently pointed straight at her ass.

Chuck seemed to notice that as well. He cleared his throat. “Want to go to a different part of the bar?” he offered. “I think it’s quieter over…there.” He pointed randomly.

“Good plan.” Sarah led the way, purposely hiding her smile at the fact that at least two of the people tried to give Chuck high-fives on the way by, and he ignored them. Inwardly, she wondered. Morgan had mentioned Stanford, which must mean that Chuck was pretty smart, but how had he ended up at a Buy More? If he had gone to Stanford, he should be working some high-paying job, not hanging out with a squirrel, a bearded one, and a lech in a bar.

She was curious, she discovered, and that surprised her. She hadn’t been curious about much of anything lately, focused as she’d been lately on getting out of the con game. But something about Chuck the Nerd Herder intrigued her.

So she turned when she reached her destination, and she deliberately stepped a little too close to Chuck, and she smiled up at him. He smiled nervously back. “So, Chuck,” she said. “Tell me about yourself.”


	3. Sarah the Monkey

“I think in another life I was a rock-climber,” Sarah remarked idly as she spun the catch on the carabineer, listening to the whirling, grinding noise metal against metal made. She dropped the clip and it bounced against her knee, suspended from the harness currently half-strapped about her waist. She would finish up the straps later, when it was actually time to do work out of the harness, but for now, it was more comfortable moving without all of the restriction. “It would explain why I like being in the harness so much and why I don’t mind being the one doing this tonight.”

“Rock-climber?” Ben asked with half a laugh as he freed another sheet of what looked like polycarbonate glass from its box. He huffed out a little breath as he straightened from the task, unfortunately reminding Sarah that Ben Arnold wasn’t so young anymore. “Missy, you were a monkey in another life. I remember you and Matt on the jungle gym, don’t forget that.”

“Who’s forgetting anything?” Before Ben could tackle the next sheet of glass, Sarah bent to the task herself. She shot a deliberately impertinent smirk over her shoulder. “Besides you, that is.”

“Watch it, missy. I’m not _that_ old.”

Sarah laughed. “Whatever you say, Uncle Ben.”

Ben scowled, so she decided to switch tactics. _Better not to annoy the man who can tell stories from the time you played with Barbies. Or named them things like Fairy Dream Princess Sissy, for the matter_.

“Thanks for your help tonight. I’m sure one of the guys would have come back to lend a hand,” she said, though she knew it was a lie.

Indeed, Ben’s scowl only grew more pronounced. “It’s not right,” he said. “A crew should always be there to help out, especially with a task like this. Scopes at the very least should be here, since tonight’s part of his job, too.”

“It’s fine. I prefer to work alone. Well, mostly alone.” Sarah pulled out the sheet, mindful not to smudge the glass too badly. She had a bottle of Windex and a roll of paper towels on her desk, but the less she screwed up now, the less work she had to do later. Given that the night ahead had a long, tedious task both mentally and physically exhausting, she was all for conservation of her energies now. She carefully set the pane so that it rested against the wall, and rose, the carabineers jouncing a strange dance at the ends of their tethers. She wore a modified cat burglar’s suit for the evening’s activities: a dark grey long-sleeved shirt with the sleeves pushed up to her elbows for now, trousers of the same shade, matching soft-soled boots that would give her feet plenty of dexterity and just enough grip to accomplish tonight’s tasks.

She didn’t like to wear grey much, but she’d always found that dark browns and greys blended in better in the half-light than black did.

“What time is Scopes getting here?” Ben asked as he and Sarah both began to break down the large, thin cardboard boxes that had housed the sheets.

 _Never, one would hope_. “His stuff’s mostly set up already, so he’ll probably get here around full dark.” Sarah glanced out the conference room windows to gauge the time. Dusk was just settling its purple-pink blanket over Los Angeles, which meant they had about an hour before Scopes brought his cloud of funk that smelled like stale corn chips, engine grease, and body odor. She glanced over the unpacked panels and nodded once to herself in satisfaction. Having Ben there had really helped. “I grabbed a sub for dinner. Want half?”

“What kind of sub?”

“Pastrami.”

“Yum. Sign me up.”

Sarah grabbed a bag of tortilla chips and a couple of cokes from the office’s kitchenette and spread out the bounty on the conference room table, passing half of the foot-long sub over to Ben. Before she could bite into her own half, though, her mobile buzzed.

Ben, who was closer, snatched it before she could and glanced at the caller ID. “Unknown caller,” he read, and raised an eyebrow at her. “Friend of yours?”

“Ha,” Sarah said, and caught the phone when he tossed it at her. She checked the area code—L.A.—and barely suppressed the happy smile in time. It looked like Chuck had gotten her less-than-subtle hint after all. “Be right back,” she told Ben, and hurried from the conference room, pulling the door firmly closed behind her. She knew conmen never resisted the urge to snoop. She couldn’t stop the snooping from happening, but she could make it difficult.

She clicked the “Talk” button. “Hello.”

“Uh, hi.” The voice at the other end of the line was definitely nervous, and it was definitely Chuck. “Is this, uh, Sarah Walker? I’m trying to reach her.”

“Congratulations, you’ve got her.” Sarah plopped down in her desk chair and swung her feet up on the desk. “May I ask who’s calling?”

“It’s Chuck?” He didn’t sound so sure of that himself. “Chuck Bartowski? From the bar the other night?”

Bartowski. Hmm. Sarah leaned forward to grab a pad of paper from the desk and a pen. “From the bar?” she repeated, barely keeping her grin out of her voice. “I’m afraid you’re going to have to be more specific than that.”

“Oh.” Chuck sounded puzzled now. “Um, Keto’s? Down on—”

“I know who you are, Chuck,” Sarah said before he could start babbling. “I’m just messing with you.”

“Ah,” Chuck said.

Sarah let the silence stretch out for a couple of seconds before she chuckled to herself. It had taken Chuck nearly half an hour to stop looking shell-shocked every time she’d spoken to him at Keto’s a couple of days before, but once she’d drawn him out of his shell, he had been an interesting and interested companion. It was why she had left him her little hint upon leaving. But she did have to wonder if she was going to have to get past his buffer with every conversation.

“So…what’s up?” she prodded.

Chuck cleared his throat. _He’s so cute when he’s nervous._ “Well, I’m calling because, well, I seem to have found your card in my pocket by mistake?”

“Imagine that,” Sarah said, her smile growing.

“It _was_ a mistake, right? Because somebody like you slipping her card into a guy like me’s pocket, that’s definitely a mistake, or at least that doesn’t happen every day, so really I guess what I’m trying to say here is that, _was_ it a mistake?”

Sarah opened her mouth to either reply or laugh because his rambling was just too cute, but before she could do either, the front door of the office opened to admit not only Scopes, but Connor as well. Immediately, the giddy feeling that had come with seeing the words “Unknown Caller” flash across her Caller ID screen dampened quite a bit.

“Aren’t you supposed to be working?” Connor asked right away, frowning at Sarah’s feet up on the desk.

“Sorry, hold on,” Sarah said into the phone. She purposely kept her boots on the desk and shot Connor an less-than-impressed look. Idly, keeping her movements smooth, she flipped to a new page of her notepad so that Connor and Scopes wouldn’t see that she had been doodling the name Bartowski over the page. She covered the receiver. “Dinner break. We’re ahead of schedule.”

“We’re?” Connor repeated.

“Ben helped me out. He’s in the back.”

“That’s not his job,” Connor said, an ugly scowl spreading over his features.

Sarah shrugged. “Do you mind?” she asked, pointing at the phone. “Kind of busy here.”

Connor didn’t look pleased about that, but both he and Scopes stomped toward the back room, the latter leaving a cloud of eau de Scopes in his wake.

“Sorry about that,” Sarah said into the phone. “I’m still at work.”

“You, too, huh?” Now that Chuck mentioned it, she could hear the clamour and din of what she guessed was the Buy More behind him. “It’s the monthly fix it night here, which means all of the Herders have to work late, but I wanted to call you and confirm that you had indeed lost your mind when you left me your card.”

“Nope,” Sarah said, laughing. “Still sane.”

“Oh.” Chuck didn’t seem sure what to say to that, judging by his pause. “If that’s the case, then maybe have you possibly considered getting your head examined? Or perhaps your eyesight?”

“My eyesight is perfectly fine,” Sarah promised, flipping back to the original page in her notebook. She wasn’t very handy with a pen, but she could draw spirals pretty well. She focused on starting one of those now. “Have you considered that I maybe put that card in your pocket because I had a good time at the bar and wanted to—”

Something loud clanged on the other end of the phone line, followed by a yelp and a mild swear on Chuck’s part. “Sorry, so sorry,” he said, “but could you hold on just a second? I wouldn’t do this to you, but Lester’s pinned under a—yeah—just one second, I promise.”

Sarah smiled and focused on widening the spiral. When Chuck’s absence took more than the aforementioned “just one second,” and several very interesting cries of pain shrieked out over the phone line, she turned the notebook sideways and began writing random things along the line of the spiral. By the time Chuck came back, she’d managed to form a somewhat decent story that made sense only to her.

“I am so, so, so sorry about that,” he said right away. “We had a bit of a computer emergency, and Morgan decided to help, and it might have been okay if Skip hadn’t tripped into the display rack of electric guitars and…none of this is making sense. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be.” Sarah laughed. “It sounds like an interesting place to work.”

“It depends on your definition of interesting. Like, tell me, would you consider hell an interesting place to work?”

“I’m sure it’s not that bad,” Sarah said, though she had to wonder about working in the same job, a job society considered dead-end, day in and day out. She’d never had the pleasure.

“It’s not. It’s just…” Another voice cut in on Chuck’s end of the phone, close enough that Sarah could hear what was being said.

“Who you talkin’ to, man?”

“Morgan, go away!”

“Seriously, who is that? It’s not Ellie, is it?”

 _Who is Ellie_? Had Morgan been lying when he said Chuck didn’t have a girlfriend? Frowning, Sarah wrote down the name and circled it on her notepad.

“It’s not Ellie.” Chuck’s voice suddenly grew louder as he addressed Sarah again. “I’m sorry, would you give me just another second?” Before Sarah could reply, yet again, he turned his attention back to Morgan. He must have put a hand over the phone, but the voices still eked through. “Do you _mind_? I’m on the phone here.”

“I see that. Who is it?”

“None of your business.” A pause, a sigh. “Fine, it’s Sarah.”

“Hot Sarah?” Morgan asked.

“Hi, Morgan,” Sarah called, and muffled a giggle when a clatter on the other end of the line told her that Chuck had dropped his phone. She heard Chuck hissing at Morgan to go away. “And how is Morgan tonight?” she asked when Chuck came back.

Chuck let out a noise that was almost a growl. “Not long for this earth, I promise.”

“Aw, you don’t have to kill him on my account.”

“Trust me, he’s had it coming. Listen, so what I was saying—”

Connor popped his head into the office and shot Sarah such a significant look that she sighed. “I’m sorry, could you hold on?” she asked Chuck, and made sure to cover the receiver properly. “What is it?”

“You really should be working. We’ve only got one shot at this.” Connor looked pointedly at his watch. As crew-leader, he lived by the device.

Sarah still rolled her eyes at him, though she’d made it a policy to never openly disrespect a crew-leader until he or she was treating her unfairly. “It can’t wait five minutes?”

Connor scowled. “Five minutes,” he said, and went back into the conference.

Sarah sent a silent mental plea to Ben to distract Connor as she turned her attention back to the phone. “I’m sorry about that,” she said. “My boss, he’s kind of picky, even though I’m here after hours. What were you saying?”

“That’s okay—oh, hell.” Again, something seemed to explode in the Buy More, making Sarah briefly wonder just how corrosive an electronics store could be. The yelp this time came from Chuck himself, followed by a swear and an “Oh, my God, get out of the way! Jeff, no, don’t touch that! Ma’am, I am so sorry!”

“Sarah?” Chuck said into the phone. “I’m really, really sorry, but I have to go. There’s—yeah, you wouldn’t believe me if I told you, but I promise you, I am not hanging up on you, it’s a genuine emergency, and I’ll call back, I swear—”

“Might be easier to send a text,” Sarah said. “It’s okay. I’ll talk to you later?”

“Later, definitely!” And Chuck hung up, but not before Sarah heard something from the Buy More give an unearthly wail.

 _What the hell_?

She gave herself one more minute to sit at the desk and ponder. What the bloody hell was going on at the Buy More? That had to have been the strangest phone conversation she had ever had, and she had once spent six months pretending to be a phone-in therapist in her friend Gary’s con. She puzzled over it as she tore out her doodle sheet from the notebook and tucked it away in her pocket.

When she came back into the conference room, Ben had finished off his half of the sandwich and had a paperback John LeCarré novel open in front of him, while Scopes tapped away at a laptop in the corner. Connor, who had been twirling a couple of quarters across the tabletop, gave her an annoyed look. She gave him a cool, professional smile in return and, ignoring her Pastrami for now, set to work on Windexing the window panels. The day outside had darkened to true dusk, which meant that go time was soon, but she still took her time making sure all of the panes were perfect before she lined them neatly by the windows. Across the room, Scopes set up his own equipment with just as much precision, occasionally with Connor’s help. She might not have liked her crew, but they really were the best at what they did.

At five minutes before true dark, they synchronized their watches. It wasn’t absolutely vital, but different crew-leaders had different superstitions, and watch-setting was one of Connor’s that Sarah remembered well from the couple of times she had joined one of his crews. She buckled in the rest of her harness straps and double-checked the pulley system she and Ben had rigged from the conference room ceiling earlier that day.

Ben stepped up to work belay before Connor could. She smiled at him. “You ready for this, Uncle Ben?”

“Call me that again, and I might just let you slip if you screw up, missy,” Ben threatened, but he was smiling.

Sarah locked the rope through the carabineers and grinned impishly at him. As she did so, her cell phone, now tucked away in a handy cargo pocket on her pants, vibrated with a new text message.

It was a text from the same unknown number as before—Chuck.

“I would like to apologize for the call tonight,” the screen read. _Pretty formal for a text_. “What I was TRYING to say before Jeff started the Great Fire of Burbank: would you like to have dinner sometime? With me?”

Even though Connor and Scopes were in the room, Sarah couldn’t stop the grin from spreading over her entire face. _How like him to send a text_ , she thought, though she couldn’t blame him, considering the disaster that their call had been. She checked her watch. Less than a minute left, which was perfect. That gave her just enough time.

Smiling, she typed her reply and sent it winging back. “Pick me up at 7 tomorrow?”

“What was that about?” Ben asked, noticing the smile.

Sarah shrugged and resisted the urge to bounce on her toes, which she could equate with pre-mission jitters if she wanted to. She didn’t. She liked Chuck, for some reason. Sure, she hadn’t given him too much thought one way or the other when he’d been installing the TV or the computer network, but at the bar, he’d been fairly adorable. “Just excited,” she said, not specifying exactly what she was excited about. She pulled her mask over her head, careful to pull her ponytail under her shirt collar so that the bright blond wouldn’t give her away, tugged experimentally on the rope that would bear her weight.

“Uh-huh,” Ben said, sounding like he didn’t believe her at all.

“It’s time,” Connor said as their watches beeped in unison. “Scopes?”

A couple of keystrokes and then the nerd cleared his throat. “All right, we’re in. You have thirty-five minutes, commencing…” Scopes tapped a few more keys. “Now. Cameras are looped. Go.”

Sarah needed no more urging than that to fall backwards out the window, a wide grin on her face. She had a date with Chuck Bartowski, after all.


	4. Sarah the Carnivore

She had never dated a nerd before, so it was an understatement to say that Sarah had no idea what to expect, even though, when Chuck had called earlier, with a breathless sort of disbelief in his voice, he had warned her what she might expect first.

She hadn’t quite believed him. And now she was laughing.

“It really does!” she exclaimed, nearly clapping her hands in her amusement. “It looks just like a Tylenol gel-cap!”

“I warned you.” Chuck Bartowski smiled a little ruefully as they both looked at his car. Like him, it was called a Nerd Herder, Chuck had informed Sarah. Though the car was cute, with its red and white paint job, Sarah was rather sure she preferred the human version. He had insisted, rather adorably, at meeting her in the lobby of the hotel where she’d holed up for the duration of this job, and he’d met her with flowers. She’d left them with the desk for safekeeping, but there had been just the momentary urge to bury her face in them and sniff.

Some men would have brought flowers in hopes of getting laid, but with Chuck, Sarah didn’t think so. He was simply too nice. He had probably just picked up the flowers because he thought she would like them.

It made her happy that she’d harangued him into this date.

He’d cleaned up nicely, too. _Not that he wasn’t nice-looking to start._ He had put on a button-down shirt for the night, dressy but casual, especially when paired with jeans, and the chucks she was starting to suspect were part of his uniform, on and off duty. _Damn if that’s not endearing about him, too_.

“But yes,” Chuck said now, shaking his head at his car, “this is indeed the ride of today’s intrepid nerd, and the transportation of choice for tonight’s extravaganza.”

“Extravaganza?” Sarah echoed, laughing.

Inexplicably, a grin grew over Chuck’s face. “What, you have something against extravaganzas?”

When he smiled like that, her heart beat a little faster. She laughed. “Not at all. I can’t wait to see what you have planned.”

“It should be interesting,” he said, his words trailing off in a way that suggested nerves. If she were on the job, Sarah knew, she might have utilized that to her advantage. But right now she just found it cute. “With the Nerd Herdmobile, we’ll be sure to draw stares all night, but…” He glanced almost shyly at her, sideways. “I can’t guarantee it’s the car they’ll be staring at.”

“I can’t wait,” Sarah repeated, and headed for the passenger side.

Chuck beat her to the door—he was quick on his chucks, she saw—and held it open for her. She smiled and inclined her head at him as she slid in. She was excited about tonight, she discovered as Chuck closed the door for her. It was the first time in a long time she had been excited about anything, which was a little depressing if she thought too deeply about it.

Less than two months, she reminded herself as Chuck climbed into the driver’s seat and shot that nervous/excited/happy/disbelieving grin he did so well at her. In less than two months, she would be out of this life, sitting on a beach somewhere, or in a classroom as just another college student looking to find herself, or exploring the world. Something, anything.

But for tonight, she was excited only for the extravaganza Chuck promised. She wondered where they were going first.

  


* * *

  


It didn’t surprise her that Chuck could be an interesting dinner companion. Once he got over that disconnect his brain always seemed to suffer around her—well, the disconnect that had happened three times already, so Sarah was just going to assume it was a habit—he was actually downright charming in a self-deprecating sort of way. Even so, she had no idea why he appealed to her so much. Her father would have called him a grade-A sucker and probably would have conned him four times just for the fun of it by now. Carly would have grown bored by now and either would have taken him to bed for no other reason than he was a warm body and something to do—literally—or she would have left him in the dirt and started hitting on somebody at the bar in the corner. Even Ben would have been scratching his head.

Sarah, however, just leaned forward on her elbows and toyed absently with the remains of her penne arrabiata. As a conwoman, she’d played every role under the sun. She’d even impersonated a duchess at one point. She was more used to being wined and dined in lavish style, so the quaint hole-in-the-wall Italian restaurant Chuck had picked was quite a switch. But she liked the low-lit atmosphere and the red-checked tablecloths.

“So you live with your sister?” she asked.

She caught Chuck’s instinctual cringe, and had to fight back the smile. He’d been hoping to slip that one right past her, she saw. “Well, yeah,” Chuck said, pushing a meatball around his plate. “I live with her and her boyfriend, Captain Awesome.”

“I still can’t believe you call him that.”

“Well, he’s awesome.” That slow grin spread over Chuck’s face, and he shrugged. “We don’t actually call him that to his face, though. And my sister—Ellie—she kind of hates the nickname.”

So the Ellie Morgan had mentioned was the sister. Interesting.

“It doesn’t get awkward at all, living with your sister? Bringing the ladies home?”

Chuck’s laugh was automatic. “That’s usually not a problem, trust me.” He laughed again, but mid-syllable, his eyes widened and he looked at her almost in a panic. “You’re not suggesting that—”

Sarah grinned. _I never knew blushing was so cute_. “Sorry, Chuck,” she said. “Not on a first date.”

 _Not that there will be a second date, even though I like this guy. Pity_. She couldn’t form an attachment now, not with the current con being so high-stakes, and not with her plans for Sarah Walker to disappear afterward.

“Oh.” Chuck seemed to digest that for a minute.

To help him out, she took another bite of the penne and forced the sensible part of her, the one that claimed she shouldn’t really be here at all, away. “So how did you come to live with your sister?” she asked. He seemed socially capable, and he had a steady job. Perhaps he just liked living with his sister, but that didn’t fit with many of the guys Sarah knew. Granted, she mostly knew conmen, and if there was ever a stranger guy than a conman, she’d probably never know.

Chuck looked down, and Sarah abruptly wanted to frown. A lifelong study of body language informed her that she’d hit something of a sensitive topic.

 _Uh-oh_.

“Uh, well, I’ve lived with her since I got kicked out of Stanford,” Chuck said.

Definitely a sensitive topic. “We don’t have to talk about it, if you don’t want. We can change the subject.”

“No, no, it’s OK. It’s probably better you know up front.” Chuck didn’t quite hide all of his wince. Had somebody been coaching him about how to act on the date? Judging from the way he had to steel himself up with a deep breath, he was about to go against orders. “I got kicked out of school five years ago because my best friend claimed I stole some tests.”

He certainly didn’t look like a thief, Sarah thought. But it spoke of her background that she had to ask, “And did you?”

Chuck shook his head. “I’m a nice guy,” he said. “That’s what everybody says. ‘Chuck, yeah, he’s a real nice guy. He’ll fix your computer right up.’ I wouldn’t steal anything. I’m a law-abiding citizen. I don’t speed, I pay my taxes in February, I don’t even jaywalk. So I have no idea why Bryce—my friend—why he would do that.”

“You didn’t steal his girlfriend, did you?” Sarah asked, though she doubted it. Chuck just seemed like the nice guy he claimed to be.

“Ha. No, actually. He stole mine.”

Sarah’s eyebrows shot up. Seeing the move, Chuck sighed and chased the meatball around the plate again. “It’s a long story,” he said.

“Sounds like it. Want to talk about it?”

Chuck seemed to think about it. “Probably better if we don’t. It’s better if I stop depressing you into wanting to go escape through the bathroom window.”

“The bathrooms have windows in this place?” Sarah pretended to look around with just enough hope to make Chuck laugh. Pleased with herself, she smiled back at him. Even with his claims, it was time to change the topic, since she didn’t really want to dwell on a sore subject with Chuck. “So…is this place a favorite of yours?”

“Luigi’s?” Chuck mirrored her pose, elbows on the table, hands meeting. He wrapped one hand around the opposite wrist. “Actually, funny story, believe it or not. I’ve been coming here since I was in high school.”

“Yeah?” Though she really shouldn’t, not with the carbohydrate-heavy meal of penne, Sarah broke a breadstick in half and offered the larger piece to Chuck. He took it, but fiddled with it, dragging the end through the sauce leftover from his spaghetti and meatballs.

“The owner, Luigi, he’s a close family friend. He’s the one that taught me how to cook. I make this amazing manicotti that would make your taste buds weep with joy.” Chuck’s grin practically sparkled, it was so infectious. “Luigi will probably come out here any minute to serenade us with his accordion, actually. He likes to do that whenever Ellie or I bring somebody here. He claims it adds authentic Italian charm.”

“Really?” Sarah eyed the door that led to the kitchen a bit nervously. She hated having unnecessary attention drawn to herself.

When she looked back, Chuck was just sitting there with a broad grin on his face.

Sarah’s mouth dropped open. “Did you just make all of that up?”

Chuck smirked and nodded.

“Oh my god!” She’d just been conned by a nice guy. She never would have believed Chuck had it in him. And it really did make her look at him in a whole new light. “So you’re not close friends with the owner?”

“Me?” Chuck laughed. “I’ve never even been here before. A friend recommended it. I was just doing what guys do in the movies when they want to seem all romantic and mysterious.”

“I’m going to have to parse everything you say from now on,” Sarah decided.

“That’s OK. We can talk about you instead.” Chuck took a bite of the breadstick. “Tell me about yourself, Sarah Walker.”

This was usually, Sarah thought, where she delivered the well-prepared cover story. Family on the east coast, sister in Maine that she was close to but never go to see, average career. Goldfish. She’d used some variation of that same story on every single date she’d been on.

Right now, though, she hesitated. And she had no idea why. Sure, Chuck was fun, and she had been more excited by the date than she had anything else but leaving the con game for the past few months. But never, _never_ had she tripped over her back-story before.

She felt her pulse rate pick up a little, usually something it did only when she was cat burgling or lying.

She bought time with the oldest trick in the book. She leaned forward, tilted her head just so, and gave him the sultry smile, the one she had crafted with the sole purpose of raising blood pressure. “What do you want to know about me?” she asked, and deliberately ran her foot across Chuck’s ankle.

He jolted and kicked the table.

_OK, that was a little strong. Whoops._

“E-everything,” he said after he’d taken a sip of water. “Like, um, how does a woman like yourself get into the legal industry? What’s your favorite band? Artist? Writer? Where do you stand on the topic of ice cream and the controversial issue of pistachio flavors?”

“Pistachio? Ew.” Sarah wrinkled her nose, grateful that Chuck’s rapid-fire questions had given her at least a minute to think.

Chuck gave her a mournful look. “I don’t know if this is going to work,” he said regretfully.

“What? Why not?” Real alarm raced through her.

“Not liking pistachio is like the eighth deadly sin, Sarah.” Chuck looked at her with mock-sadness, even as she laughed and kicked his leg, gently. “Seriously, though, how did the legal profession get lucky enough to land you as a secretary?”

“It’s just a job,” Sarah said, since she’d spent that day reading magazines in the office while Terrence, Scopes, and Connor had played X-Box. She hoped that would be all, but Chuck just raised his eyebrows, waiting for her to go on. She made up a lie on the spot. “My dad was a lawyer, and I started working for him when I was really young, just to make some extra money after school was over for the day. And I was good at it, so I never thought to do anything else, really.”

“Interesting. So she’s a lawyer’s daughter.” Chuck polished off the breadstick and leaned back while he chewed.

“Uh, yeah.” At least, Sarah thought, Jack Burton had pretended to be a lawyer a time or two, so it wasn’t _completely_ a lie. Even so, it didn’t sit right in her stomach, so she switched to a topic that, sadly, was an actual truth. “About the other stuff, well, I don’t really have a favourite band or anything. I don’t really listen to a lot of music. I’m not very interesting, I’m afraid.”

“So that’s your secret?” Chuck asked, and made Sarah’s heart literally stop. “I’ve been sitting here all night, wondering.”

She thought of all three exits she’d noticed upon entering Luigi’s. Chuck was tall, but she was fast, and she could be mean if she had to get away. “About my secret?” she asked, hoping she had misheard.

“Well, yeah. I had it down to two options. I figured to myself, either she’s not very interesting, or she’s a cannibal, and I’m not gonna lie, I was pulling for cannibal because I’d never met one before.”

When Chuck laughed a little at his own joke, Sarah’s heart started again. She controlled the breath of relief instead of letting it rush out like she wanted to. “Not a cannibal,” she said in a passably normal voice. “About the closest I come is being a carnivore.”

“A carnivore, hm. Do you want dessert?” Chuck picked up the little flip menu at the edge of the table and rifled through it. “Hm, better not. I don’t think they make any desserts with meat in them.”

“And I’ll blow up like a blimp if we actually have dessert. I’m OK.” Sarah set the uneaten half of the breadstick on her plate. “What’s next in your extravaganza, Chuck?”

“I was thinking about a little sky-diving, maybe a drive down the coast in a convertible we don’t have unless we want to take a chain-saw to the Herder. At least, that was what was on the menu earlier, but now I think we need to work on this music appreciation problem of yours.”

“We do?”

“Yep. C’mon.”

Chuck paid the bill, and they left.

  


* * *

  


He took her dancing, which she didn’t expect. Well, rather, he took her to listen to a band, and she forced him to dance. Either way, she would have pegged the date move of dinner and a movie, possibly a romantic comedy or something that Chuck would watch only because he thought she would like that sort of thing. But Chuck had pulled the pill-colored car into a parking garage, and they had walked over to a club. Chuck had known the woman working the door (“She used to live in my apartment complex.”), so they had walked right in.

Chuck had seemed perfectly content to sit, simply listening to the music. Sarah had had other ideas in mind. She’d pulled him onto the dance floor. Maybe it was mean on her part. Chuck had danced like a fish out of water, or a board, stiffly with jerking elbows. Even so, she’d had a good time, dancing up against Chuck, pressing close to him because the crowd and lack of space demanded it. Feeling his heart pound, even as her own pulse sped from the proximity. She’d tortured them both, but after a few minutes of looking dazed, Chuck had loosened up. Perhaps the Sleigh Bells weren’t quite to her musical tastes, but she’d had so much fun dancing with Chuck that she hardly cared.

When he pulled into the parking lot of her hotel, she was still riding high on the endorphins from the dance. In the driver’s seat, he seemed more relaxed, like he was less terrified of her, too. She smiled at him, until he pulled into a parking spot.

The date was officially almost over.

“You don’t have to walk me up,” she said.

“Are you kidding? Ellie will kill me if I don’t walk you into the lobby, at least.”

Sarah pushed open the passenger door before Chuck could come around the car and open the door for her. Not that she didn’t appreciate a bit of chivalry now and again, but she was quite capable of working her own door. She linked her arm through his as they strolled through the parking lot, both pleased that he didn’t even tense and surprisingly sad.

Why couldn’t she have met Chuck, Sarah thought desperately as they headed toward the lobby, when she was settled, after this job? When she had established her new identity, and could be just a girl meeting a slightly nerdy, nice guy? Of course, she had been planning to run as far from California as she could get, as memories like Jenny Burton still existed there, but LA was a big city. She could lose herself here, maybe find herself with a guy like Chuck, or with Chuck herself.

“What’s the matter?” Chuck asked, breaking into her train of thought.

She immediately cleared her expression. “What?”

“You looked really…forlorn there for a second.” Chuck cocked his head, squinting a bit as he studied her. They walked through the sliding glass doors. “Wait a second, you’re not sad that the date’s over, are you?”

“No.” Though she was, Sarah made herself give him a strange look. “I was thinking about work.”

“Uh-huh.” Chuck smirked. “I think you’re sad tonight’s over. Admit it, you had a good time.”

That was easy enough. Sarah leaned in just a little, one of her favorite things to do, even as she steered them toward the hallway that led to the elevators. She would say good-bye to Chuck there. “Chuck?”

“Yeah?”

“I had a good time. Best extravaganza I’ve had in a long time.”

Again, that slow, happy smile, the one that came over his face in phases. “I knew it.”

They reached the elevators. Even though it wasn’t terribly late—a little after midnight or so—the lobby and the hallway had been abandoned. Sarah turned to Chuck. “This is where I leave you,” she said, trying to keep a surprising amount of depression out of her voice.

“Oh. Uh, well.” Chuck glanced at the wall of elevators and then back at her. He extended a hand toward her. “I had a fantastic time tonight.”

Really? After all of that he was going to give her a handshake? _Of course, maybe it’s better this way, to end it cleanly. That way, when I have to avoid his phone calls later, neither of us will be too depressed._

 _Oh, to hell with it_.

She ignored the hand Chuck held out, put her hands on either side of his face, and pulled him down to kiss him.


	5. Sarah the One Night Stand

She caught him off-guard. She could tell by the way he stiffened against her palms, and by the way that the hand he’d held out to shake hers, the hand she had now effectively trapped between their bodies by stepping forward, flexed once and closed slowly into a fist. And the fact that it took him a second to respond to the kiss.

She didn’t hold it against him. If it took him a minute to relax around her whenever she smiled at him, she figured he probably needed a longer learning curve for kissing and other forms of Public Displays of Affection.

That was perfectly fine with her. At some things she happened to be an excellent teacher. She doubled her effort, kissing him a bit harder and stepping a little closer.

The move seemed to do the trick. His hands clamped onto her waist, sudden enough to make her jolt just the tiniest bit, and Chuck mimicked her move, stepping in with enthusiasm. The rest of him seemed to spring to life, and he kissed her back with surprising fervor. In that single second, the kiss went from a chaste “I had a good time, thanks for the date” kiss to something much deeper, something a hell of a lot more exciting and a lot harder to describe.

Sarah felt her breath catch in her throat, and her heart echo the move by skipping a beat. Goosebumps raced across her skin. Chuck wasn’t the most technically skilled person she had ever kissed, but the way he threw all of himself into it, the way he focused on her, that single, sole focus, it hardly mattered. In fact, it didn’t matter at all. She tilted her head, changing the angle of the kiss, offering more. Her arms slid down his cheeks, sitting on either side of his neck.

By all rights, she should break this off, climb into the elevator, and forget about Chuck Bartowski. She shouldn’t be standing here in the hallway with him. She shouldn’t be wondering about how his skin felt, or that his hands were oddly callused for a nerd, or enjoying the hints of the coffee he’d had between Luigi’s and the club on his lips. This was a bad, bad idea.

 _To hell with it_ , she thought again, and wrapped her arms around his neck, closing the final millimeter of space between their bodies. She licked his bottom lip, and her lips curved against his when he groaned. A shudder passed through him, or maybe it was her. It didn’t matter.

One of his hands trailed up her back, leaving a streak of searing heat for such a light touch. That hand tangled through her hair, seeming to marvel in the texture for just a hairsbreadth of time before each individual finger wrapped around a tress, gently tugging her head back and once again changing the angle of the kiss. All logical, coherent thought ground to a halt as his tongue slid into her mouth and began to explore.

Sarah whimpered. She ignored the noise and strained against Chuck, wanting more, wanting everything, wanting him to hurry up and slow down and to never, ever stop kissing her like that.

Chuck seemed to get the message. What had been methodical and thorough now became frantic, desperate, rushed, dark, exciting. His right hand splayed across her lower back, a star-shaped furnace that burned into her skin even through the thin cloth of her shirt, and yanked her even closer, even as he stepped forward. Sarah’s back hit a hard surface. She didn’t care. She was too busy racing her hands all over Chuck’s torso, enjoying the way he groaned as her hands slipped under the button-down he’d worn for the date. Her hands found the restricting cotton of an undershirt, and ruthlessly yanked.

Chuck grunted, a noise that seemed to reverberate through his chest and into her. He changed his focus, his lips trailing down to her neck, to a particularly sensitive spot beneath her ear. Sarah gasped. She’d pulled his undershirt loose from his jeans, and her fingers dug into the skin of Chuck’s back. His skin felt glorious under her fingertips, trembling the slightest bit as Chuck himself seemed to quiver.

The _ding_ of an elevator door opening made both of them jump. Chuck reared back in surprise, startled into backpedaling. The problem was, he was as wrapped around Sarah as it was possible to get, so he tripped and started to fall. Only the fact that Sarah had planted her feet, and that she had both of her hands up Chuck’s shirt, her nails dug into Chuck’s back, kept both of them from crashing to the marble floor of the hallway.

Reality reinserted itself in that one heart-stopping moment. Sarah blinked sluggishly She was breathing hard enough that her shoulders were heaving, and her heart was racing so hard that it pounded like tribal drums in her ears. The only thing that made it OK was that Chuck, who was now gripping her for balance, seemed to breathing just as hard. He made no attempt to step back, either, so she had to tilt her head back if she wanted to meet his gaze.

She didn’t. It was cowardice and confusion, pure and simple. Sarah kept her gaze fasted on Chuck’s shoulder, which was about an inch from her nose.

 _What the hell was_ that?

What had just happened? Had she really nearly jumped a guy she’d known less than a week in the hallway? God, she’d all but attacked him like an animal. Sure, he’d returned the favor in spades, but none of it made sense.

Oh god, her hands were still on his back.

Should she move? Laugh it off? Acknowledge that what happened was so far out of her normal patterns of behaviour, she was thinking about getting a CAT scan come Monday?

She did none of the above. She bit her lips, which didn’t help since she could still taste him, and the coffee, and passion on them, and tried to take a deep breath. It proved useless. Her nerves were so completely shot that her hands—the ones still digging into Chuck’s back in a way that was probably painful, even if he wasn’t complaining—were beginning to tremble.

And if one of them didn’t speak soon, this was going to go from confusing to awkward very, very quickly.

She did the only thing her fuzzy brain could think to do. She turned her head and looked at the open elevator doors beside them. The cart was empty. “Who…” She cleared her throat, since her voice was much too high-pitched and breathy. “Did somebody come out?”

“No. At least, I don’t think so.” Chuck sounded puzzled, but she wasn’t brave enough yet to look up into his face. She felt him move his head to look around the hallway, though. “I think somebody pushed the button.”

“Somebody? But there’s nobody…” Sarah trailed off as she realized exactly what her back was pressing against. “Oh.”

“Yeah.” Chuck took a deep, steadying breath, and blew it out. She could practically feel the heat of a blush forming on his skin, which gave her the courage to look up into his face. Amazingly, he met her eye, even if his expression was rapidly turning sheepish. “I guess we got a little carried away?”

“A little?” Sarah asked before she could stop herself.

Chuck winced. “OK, a lot.”

She’d been less than a couple of seconds from letting him take her against the wall. Or more realistically, against the control panel for the elevators. _A lot_ was one of the biggest understatements of her life.

And she wanted to do it all again, preferably in a bed, but deep down, the wanton side of her couldn’t have given a damn where it happened, as long as it did.

Because that side of her was far too close to the surface for any sort of comfort whatsoever, Sarah slowly, carefully drew her hands back from under Chuck’s shirt. She wanted to put them in her pockets, but the movement felt awkward. She settled for leaving her hands on Chuck’s hips, trying desperately to ignore the way his skin seemed to heat up with the merest contact. Regretful, confused, she nudged, hoping to move Chuck back so that he wasn’t crowding her.

He didn’t move. The look on his face told her that he was as puzzled by that as she was, but he stayed right where he was, his hand still tangled in her hair while the other hand rested on her lower back, his fingertips brushing the half-inch of exposed skin there.

She opened her mouth to ask him what he was doing, but he licked his lips, and drew her attention to them. Oh god, now that she knew exactly how potent that mouth was, it was all she could do to keep from leaning forward just a few inches and biting that lower lip. It wouldn’t even take that much effort on her part.

“I want to see you again,” Chuck blurted out, and Sarah forgot all about his lips.

“What?”

“I think this…event right here proves that there’s something between us.” Chuck’s voice wavered in a way that she normally would have found adorable, except her heart had started to pound all over again. “And I don’t care if it’s against the unspoken rule of first dates or whatever. I want to see you again.”

Sarah wanted to say yes. Hell, she wanted to scream it, but that was besides the point in this particular conversation. She wanted nothing more than to agree to see Chuck again, take a step back, go out and see if their insane amount of chemistry led them right back to this spot. But she couldn’t. The con would be over soon, and Sarah Walker would vanish from the face of the earth, little more than a name like every other name she had had before that wasn’t Samantha. And she wouldn’t even be Samantha then. She would be somebody else, and Chuck Bartowski would be nothing but an incredibly sexy memory.

It was better to end it now.

It was better to rip the band-aid off before it could hurt too much.

It was best if she said no, I can’t see you again, Chuck.

She closed her eyes. “It’s late,” she said.

“It won’t be if you say yes, you’ll go out with me again.” Chuck sounded stubborn. It wasn’t usually a quality she appreciated in a man, but something shivered over her skin now. “We can even set an early curfew. I don’t care. Anything you want, just let me see you again.”

Mu.

“I…” _Can’t. I can’t. I have a thing, there’s an ex-boyfriend, I’m busy at work, I’m going out of town, I’m a con-artist, and you’re a nice guy_. There were so many things she could say. Sarah opened her eyes, looked up into Chuck’s stubborn, determined face, and said the only one she could: “Do you want to come up?”

He blinked, and she could see the confusion take hold. “What?”

“It’s late,” she said again, deliberately lacing her words with extra meaning. “Why don’t you come up to my room…and have a nightcap?”

 _Oh god, I am such an idiot_.

  


* * *

  


“I don’t normally do things like this.”

One thing Sarah discovered about Chuck Bartowski was that once his clear-sighted moments of sheer will faded, the babbling set in. And while it had been adorable on their date and at the bar—and it was still fairly cute—right now it was downright nerve-wracking because Chuck’s babbling seemed to be striking the very same chord that had been echoing through her since they had climbed into the elevator together, and she had pressed the button for her floor. She didn’t do things like this. This was one of the most exhilarating and stupid things she had ever done in her life.

It would just be drinks, she determined, watching the numbers climb on the elevator. Next to her, Chuck continued to babble. She tuned him out. She would invite him in, they would share a quick drink, and she would send him on his way.

He grabbed her hand. It made her jump, but she didn’t try to dislodge him. His palm was clammy against hers, and that was both endearing and terrifying.

 _One drink_. A little liquid courage, she thought as the elevator began to slow on its final approach to her floor, and then she would send Chuck on his way. If she could, she would plant the idea in his head that this mess was all her fault, not his. That she was the one at fault, not him. That way, he could go on, meet some nice girl that was the perfect counterpart to his nice guy genes, and they would go on to be a nice couple, and raise nice kids and…

“Uh.” Chuck’s voice cut into her concentration. “You’re kind of hurting my hand.”

Sarah relaxed her grip and cursed the fact that she wanted to flush.

She had to let his hand go to work her room key. He stood behind her, not quite crowding her, but still closer than the Chuck of earlier would have dared to stand. She blamed the fact that she had to swipe the card twice on her shaky hand rather than his proximity.

“Home sweet home,” she said as she pushed open the door to the hotel room.

He followed her in. “Yeah, I’ve been meaning to ask. You live in a hotel?”

She’d lived in thousands of hotels. “It’s temporary,” she said, which was the honest truth. Soon she would have a flat, perhaps a loft. A place to call her own, and to fill with her own possessions, things that would match her own taste. “I’m between places at the moment, so the bosses at the firm are putting me up here since the new office is a little far from my old place.”

“Oh. Hmm.” Chuck looked around the room, his eyebrows rising no doubt at the luxury present throughout. Sarah had lived in every type of motel under the sun. Since her childhood had been spent in too many fleabag motels to count, she tended to gravitate toward the nicer ones now. She could afford it, after all. “It’s nice that they’re doing that. Is all your stuff in storage?”

As a con-artist, she could get by with nothing but the clothes on her back and her wits. Everything she owned was in the room with her right now. “Sure,” she lied, feeling uneasy with even that small of a lie. _I really need to get a grip_. She pointed at the fridge, set tastefully inside the bar in the main suite. “Why don’t you fix us up that drink I promised you? I’m just going to…” She gestured at the bathroom door.

“What? Oh, um, sure.”

Inside of the bathroom, out of Chuck’s sight, Sarah leaned her forehead against the cool wood of the door-jamb and wondered just what the hell she thought she was doing. It didn’t matter that the…encounter in the hallway had been the most intense, most passionate, best kiss of her life, and she wanted to do nothing but try that again, to experiment and see if the heat was still there without the surprise. She couldn’t see Chuck again. Not if she wanted to escape the con game for good.

Maybe she should just stay Sarah Walker, see Chuck again like he wanted, and see where things led.

_Oh, that’s going to work. He’s a law-abiding citizen. He doesn’t even jay-walk. You steal things for a living. How’s that going to work out?_

He’s a good person. Better than you.

He deserves better than this.

By the time Sarah emerged from the bathroom, she knew exactly what she had to do. She’d known all along, but now she steeled her shoulders, kept her spine rigid. “Chuck, I…” was as far as she got.

Her eyes fell to the top of her vanity in the corner. She had no idea why. She thought it looked exactly as she had left it, the items atop it regimented into relatively neat lines, but she couldn’t be sure.

“Don’t worry,” Chuck’s voice said, and she looked over to see him sitting on the edge of the bed. “I didn’t go through anything or touch any of your stuff. I just…” He waggled a water bottle at her.

She raised her eyebrow as he tossed her the bottle. “Water? That’s your nightcap?”

“Well, yes.” He flushed a bit. “I’m driving, and I didn’t want you to think I’d slipped you something or anything. And I want you to know, I didn’t come up here for…that.”

And just like that, Sarah forgot all about the resolution she’d made in the bathroom. She set the unopened water bottle down on her dresser and crossed the room slowly, her eyes on Chuck’s the whole time. He had the presence of mind to close his own water bottle before she climbed onto the bed next to him. He met her halfway.

It was like they hadn’t even skipped a beat from downstairs. The same amount of heat was there, in the way that Chuck’s hands pulled her closer, in the way her pulse began to gallop. She all but crawled into his lap, kissing him urgently while her hands worked at the buttons on his shirt, eager to discover exactly what lay beneath.

She was going to hate herself in the morning, but that was then and this was now, and Chuck’s lips found that sensitive spot again, and she couldn’t care less about anything but that, and how warm and real he felt beneath her. She moaned and returned the gesture by nipping his collarbone through his shirt, chuckling lowly when he jumped. A couple of buttons, and his over-shirt was no longer a problem. Freed of it, he wrapped his arms around her and spun them both down into the mattress, so that she was on her back, with his weight, warm and exciting and somehow reassuring, pressing into her. She laughed, more of a gasp, as her back once again landed on something. Since there was a point digging in between her shoulder blades, she wriggled, trying to find a more comfortable spot.

Chuck groaned. “Don’t do that,” he begged, lifting his head from where he had started to work his way down her neck, “or this is over before it starts.”

“I’m sorry—there’s just something—” Sarah wiggled again.

Chuck pressed his body against hers to hold her still, and her eyes nearly crossed. But he just levered an arm under her and pulled out whatever had been poking into her back.

Her cell phone, she saw. She must have left it on the bed when she’d gone out with Chuck earlier, and it spoke of just how fantastic the date had been that she hadn’t even noticed its absence. She moved to grab it away from Chuck and throw it across the room so that he could get back to business with her neck, but he was frowning at the display screen.

“Sarah?” he asked. “You know you’ve got seventeen missed calls?”

“What?” How the hell was he able to think, much less read? And why the hell did he care that—seventeen missed calls?

Oh, hell.

Sarah pushed on the mattress, pulling herself out from under Chuck with one hand and grabbing the phone away with the other. She normally didn’t use her cell phone much, but the team members were all supposed to have their phones on them at all times. If something had happened with the job…

The calls weren’t from Connor. No, her phone showed seventeen missed calls from Ben Arnold. _That’s odd_.

Even while she tried to puzzle out why Ben would call her so many times, the phone buzzed in her hand. Ben’s name popped up on the Caller ID. “Sorry,” she told Chuck, her brow furrowing. “I think I have to take this. It may be a work emergency.”

He looked a bit surprised by that, but he shrugged. “Take your time,” he said, and amused her by flopping face-first into the mattress.

She swiped her room key from where she’d dropped it on the bathroom counter and slipped from the room, pressing “Talk” on the way out. “Ben, what’s going on?”

“Where the hell have you been? I’ve been worried sick!”

Sarah took a deep breath and deliberately didn’t look at the hotel room door. If she did, she would think about Chuck, who was on the other side of it, waiting for her. “I was out on a date, and I left my phone in my room. What’s going on? Where are you? It sounds like you’re in an airport.”

“That’s because I am.”

Sarah stopped pacing. “Is it Mary? Is she OK?”

“Mary’s fine. And before you can ask, the kids are OK, too. I wasn’t sure if I would reach you in time, so I kept calling. I’m dumping my phone and going to ground.”

Even though the news that Mary hadn’t been hurt or arrested wasn’t enough to make Sarah’s heart stop pounding. She had a very bad feeling about this. “What? Why? Connor—”

“No longer wants me on the team.” Ben sounded tired.

“But that makes no sense. You’re the face-man. You’re Platte of Morton, Platte, and Gideon!”

“And now Platte is taking an extended business trip. I don’t have long—my plane’s almost done boarding.”

“Connor kicked you off the team?” Sarah repeated, still dumbfounded by that. Connor had selected his crew because they were the best, and Ben Arnold was a legend. If Connor was going to kick anybody off of the team, it should have been Terrence, as he served no discernable purpose to anything, either on the crew or off of it, in Sarah’s opinion. Connor getting rid of Ben was like pouring a twelve-year-old single-malt liquor down the drain.

“I left on my own volition. I just wanted to say good-bye before I left.”

“Oh.” Inexplicably, she felt near tears. This was supposed to be her last job, and working that job with Ben had been…almost like having her dad there with her, really. Only her dad still didn’t understand her decision, and for all of Ben’s posturing, he had. And now she had to deal with Connor, Terrence, and Scopes by herself? “I guess, good-bye, then?”

“I’ll see you around, kid,” Ben promised. There was a pause as a spate of airport chatter broke over the line, and then Ben sighed heavily. “That’s my cue. Sarah…be careful, OK?”

“I will, Uncle Ben. Bye.”

The phone clicked, leaving her with nothing but silence. Sarah lowered it away from her face and stood in the hallway, a little too shell-shocked to process what was going on. Ben’s leaving was a huge blow, and it _hurt_ like an actual fist to the stomach. And leaving just like that…

Seventeen missed calls.

He must have really wanted to say good-bye.

She gave herself a minute to compose herself, grateful that she hadn’t actually given in to the urge to cry, as she didn’t think she could face Chuck like that. By the time she opened her door, she made sure she looked steadier, though her brain was whirling at a thousand miles a minute.

She pulled up short to see Chuck doing up the last button on his shirt. He looked up at her, shyly again. “I’m sorry,” he said before she could start speaking. “I really, really don’t know what got into me, but I don’t normally do things like this. Not on the first date, at least.” He smiled hesitantly, but she was too shaken up to smile back, so his smile faded. “I think it’s best that I go.”

“Oh.”

“I had a really great time tonight, though.” Chuck rose to his feet. Since she’d kicked off her shoes in the bathroom earlier, he towered over her, all tall, lean nerd. Rumpled nerd, she corrected. He may have straightened his shirt, but she had done a number on his hair. She was a little proud of herself. “And I would love to see you again.”

The threat of tears rose up once more. Sarah pushed it back down only through sheer willpower, which had miraculously reappeared during her strange conversation with Ben. She walked behind Chuck to her door, wondering what on earth she could say that would convince him that a second date would be a very, very bad thing.

He beat her to the punch by turning to face her outside the door. She tensed, expecting that he would lean in for another kiss, and they would go for round three, but Chuck merely pulled out his wallet.

 _What the hell_? He wasn’t going to…offer to pay her, was he? Sarah stilled.

Chuck, however, didn’t pull cash from his wallet. Instead, he removed a small white card, held it up, and made a deliberate show of leaning forward. With his face very close to hers, he delicately pushed the card—his business card—into the front pocket of her jeans.

“Ball’s in your court now,” he said, his voice much deeper than usual. It sent shivers down Sarah’s spine. And before she could think to take a step back or make an excuse, Chuck swooped in. He kissed her, as hot as it was brief, and strolled off.

She was left with the phone in her hand, his business card in her pocket, and no idea in hell how a night that had started off as just a promise of a little fun had turned so serious, so fast.

 _I am in so much trouble_.


	6. Sarah the Rainwalker

“Isn’t it the secretary’s job to get the bagels?”

_I really wish I had a gun right now._

The best policy, Sarah had learned over the past couple of weeks, was just to ignore Terrence whenever he did things like speak, and breathe. Which he seemed to insist on doing on a regular basis, much to the detriment of all of humanity. Usually, it wasn’t her problem. But he was sitting next to her at the conference table again, and leering, and she didn’t even have the steadying influence of Ben Arnold to keep the morons she worked with in line.

Even though she might imagine it in frightening detail, murder was still a line she wouldn’t cross—steal, yes, kill, no—so she went for a much sweeter, saccharine smile that dripped with sarcasm at the edges. “If I were a real secretary, I would be happy to bring the bagels, Terrence.”

“Says secretary on your desk.”

“It also says Stacee.” Sarah twirled a swizzle stick between her fingers and upped the sarcasm behind her smile. “Name’s not Stacee.”

Terrence crossed his arms over his chest and scowled. “It _should_ be,” he muttered. “I want a bagel. This is a staff meeting, and real staff meetings have bagels.”

“For Pete’s sake!” Standing in his usual spot between the windows and the conference room table, Connor Morton threw both hands in the air. “As soon as the meeting is over, we’ll order pizza! OK, Terrence?”

“OK,” Terrence said, a little startled.

Connor had been distinctly frazzled all morning, his nice shirt partially untucked, his hair a mess. The loss of Ben Arnold had possibly affected him more than it had struck home with Sarah. Over the past week, Sarah had had a first-row seat to watch Connor Morton unravel.

She might have enjoyed it, if she weren’t feeling so miserable.

She had never known a business card could weigh a thousand pounds. Or so it felt, every time she tucked Chuck Bartowski’s business card into her pocket. She’d attempted to throw it away, but some unknown force had stayed her hand every single time, so instead she had just switched the card from pocket to pocket. And since her skirt and blouse had no pockets today, and she hadn’t wanted to carry a purse, she had stashed the card somewhere else entirely. She could feel a corner digging into the hollow beneath her collarbone.

She hadn’t called Chuck. It had been five days.

_So far, so good._

Except that she felt downright awful.

“Still with us, Sarah?” Connor’s voice broke into her reverie.

She didn’t jerk her head or give any outward sign that her mind had been, as her father would have put it, woolgathering. Instead, she turned to face Connor, as he had begun to pace at some point. “I’m still with you,” she lied smoothly.

“Good. Then what did I just say?”

 _Crap_.

“I thought so,” Connor said when Sarah paused before answering. He sighed gustily. “We’re moving the con up.”

All thoughts of Chuck Bartowski scattered. “What?” Sarah asked, bolting upright in her seat. “Why? Why would we do this? That makes no sense. The plan—”

“Has to be changed, now that Ben is no longer on the crew.”

Sarah didn’t see how or why the plan would have to change with Ben’s absence, since that could easily be explained away by an extended business trip. He hadn’t actually had much to do in the operational section of the con, as Ben Arnold’s charm was as a front-man. He shared that quality with Jack Burton.

But since this was Connor’s crew and he knew what he was doing, Sarah would just have to trust that he knew what he was doing. For the most part.

“What about the exit strategy?” she asked. “If we move the con up, the timetable—”

“We’ve got a new exit strategy,” Connor interrupted her. “Which is Terrence’s responsibility, so you won’t need to worry about that.”

Disbelieving, Sarah turned toward Terrence. He waved cheerfully back at her.

“But the good news is that the new plan means less face-time, so no more need to put in hours at the office, boys. And Sarah.” Connor’s gaze swept around the room, taking in Sarah, Terrence, and Scopes, who was, as always, hunched in the corner behind a laptop. “We’re not sure which night the con will go down yet, but the operational plans have not changed. You’ll be expected to perform your part, Sarah. Do you have a problem with that?”

 _Honestly, yes_.

“I’d prefer to know what the new exit strategy is,” Sarah said, frowning. “I’d like to know what your plans are, now that we don’t have to put in face-time, and why you’re changing up the plan in disproportionate ways to Ben’s leaving.”

“Do I tell you how to do your job?”

“Constantly.”

Connor’s face tightened unattractively. “I know what I’m doing,” he said, stubbornness hinting at the edges of his voice.

He was the best, Sarah reminded herself. That was why she had picked this team, this job, to join for her final con. And part of the job was trusting that the crew-leader knew what he or she was doing, even when you thought the crew-leader was being an idiot.

“The con will go down as planned, and if Terrence does his job right, nobody will have to worry about the exit strategy,” Connor said, crossing his arms over his chest like a petulant child. Sarah had to remind herself, once more, of Jack Burton’s rules about trusting the crew-leader. When that didn’t work, she pictured the same beach she had been imagining for the last couple of months, every time she wanted to remind herself that this was her last con.

She didn’t see a beach. She saw Chuck sitting on the edge of a hotel room bed, his shirt a mess, while he smiled sheepishly at her with a water bottle in his hands.

“Keep your phones on,” Connor said, yanking her attention back into the conference room. “Operational readiness at all times. The con goes down when Scopes finishes the last tweaks to his programs, so be ready. No alcohol, no drugs, no distractions.”

“So you want us to live like monks?” Terrence groaned.

“Think of the money, Terrence. Everybody good?” Connor didn’t bother to wait for anybody to answer that before he nodded. “Good. You’re on your own until you get the call. Meeting adjourned.”

  


* * *

  


Rain turned Los Angeles into an entirely new and foreign city, cloaking things the sun typically showcased and revealing other details bright sunlight hid. Sarah watched it pelt down onto Santa Monica and into the ocean, grey against the grey sky. If she had been into literature at all, she might have reflected on the fact that the rain served as a perfect mirror for the thunderous mood boiling through her system, but instead, she merely watched it change the world she had come to know over the past couple of years into something unfamiliar.

The Santa Monica Pier should have been bustling in mid-August, but it was almost abandoned. Families that had braved the torrential downpour had either scurried to drier pastures, or they were huddled in the restaurants or in the shops and the arcade. But since the rain had been pouring for hours, and it showed no signs of stopping now, even those crowds had thinned out to the hardcore and the bored.

Sarah wasn’t sure where she fit in. She stood out in front of the arcade, under the overhang. Sure, she got a little wet, but water had never particularly bothered her. She was a fantastic swimmer, and even though rain wasn’t part of her usual existence, she rather liked the feel of it against her bared arms when stray drops would fall her way.

She told herself she was watching the beach, and not waiting for Chuck.

It had been six days since their date, and their odd moments of passion that had seemed to spring up from nowhere.

She was still waiting for the call from Connor, the call that would signal the beginning of the job, and the end of her life in Los Angeles.

She spotted Chuck easily. His build would always give him away, and of course there were the shoes. He hurried through the rain, making a haphazard path across the planks of the pier to avoid the deepest puddles, even as he used a newspaper to shield his head from the worst of the wet.

The first thing he said as he hurried to her was, “I am so, so sorry.”

Sarah blinked. _That was pretty much the last opening line I expected_. She opened her mouth to ask what for, but the reason soon became apparent.

All four reasons became apparent, that was. Morgan, Jeff, Lester, and another green-shirt had been following Chuck across the pier. They eyed her, Morgan nodding and smiling his greeting, as they slipped past her to go inside the arcade. Jeff only slowed a little bit to leer at her chest.

“Again, I’m sorry,” Chuck said once the nerds were inside and out of earshot. “They heard me say ‘arcade’ into the phone, and they wanted to come, and there wasn’t a way to ditch them without causing a riot in the store. But they’ve promised to leave us alone, I swear, and they’re actually pretty good about keeping their word when they swear on the Gom Jabbar, so there’s always that and—”

Despite the nerves that made her want to throw up, Sarah had to laugh. “Chuck, it’s OK. Take a breath.”

Chuck did so, and made her smile by repeating the move. “Right. Sorry.” He paused and looked at her shyly again, in that way that would absolutely destroy a much stronger woman than Sarah Walker. “Hi.”

“Hi.”

“Can I just say that I’m really glad you called? Because I don’t think I could have lasted another day without breaking down and calling you, a move that the guys assured me would be less than cool after that idiotic stunt with the business card.”

“I didn’t think it was idiotic.”

“Either way.” Chuck took a deep breath. She had already learned that this was usually the sign of an oncoming monologue. “Listen, I also want to apologize for what happened outside the elevators. I really don’t know what came over me, but I assure you, I don’t normally assault a woman on the first date. In fact, forget normally. I’ve never assaulted a woman on the first date. I wouldn’t have blamed you if you had run screaming for the hills after that one.”

_It would have been so much easier for both of us if I had._

Sarah cleared her throat. “If you assaulted me, I assaulted you right back. Which was not, I assure you, first date behavior for me either.”

“Ah.” Chuck looked sideways at her. He was wearing his Buy More ensemble again, his tie slightly askew, raindrops patterning the shoulders of his shirt with white-grey splotches. His eyebrows drew together in confusion. “You…don’t look all that happy to see me. Is it something I said?”

“No, no, nothing you said.” _Do it, Sarah. End it now. Quick and clean._

“What’s the matter?”

Sarah wanted to tell him not to be nice. He was so appealing when he was nice. If he’d just been a little more of a jerk, maybe she wouldn’t have pursued him so hard in the bar, or tricked him into the first date that had been such a mistake.

 _Do it, Sarah_.

“I don’t think I can see you again,” Sarah said, not looking over at him. She kept her gaze fastened steadily on the rain pounding down onto the boards of the pier, rather than looking at Chuck.

“Oh.” The word seemed to tumble out of Chuck before he could stop himself, and Sarah inwardly cringed, feeling like she had kicked a puppy. Indeed, Chuck seemed to deflate back against the front wall of the arcade, like she had killed all hope for him.

“It’s not that I don’t want to,” she said, which was the total truth. “I’d love nothing more than to go out again and see where this might lead.” Sure, a lot of it was that he was an excellent kisser and she was almost burning to know what might have happened if the elevator hadn’t opened, or if Ben hadn’t called. But that was apparently never to be. “It’s just that I’m moving soon.”

“What?” Chuck blinked a couple of times. “I thought your bosses were keeping you in a hotel until you found a place closer to work?”

_Trust him to remember that sort of detail._

“I got a new job,” Sarah lied, turning to look at Chuck, but only out of the side of her eye. “On the east coast. I applied for it months ago, but I didn’t think I had a snowball’s chance in hell of getting it, but I got it and they want me to start as soon as I can. I’m leaving in a couple of days.”

For a minute, Chuck didn’t reply. He seemed to be digesting all of the facts, staring forward and not at her. “You could have told me this over the phone,” he said at length. “You didn’t have to drag yourself out through the rain to tell me that. I get it.”

Sarah surprised herself by shrugging. “I felt like you deserved better.”

Chuck rocked back on his heels, squinting a bit at her. “Yeah?”

“Yeah. I don’t know any other guy on the planet that would offer an extravaganza on the first date, or lie so well about knowing the owner of an Italian place to seem mysterious and romantic.” Sarah’s lips tilted upwards, though the humor ached. “I wish things could be different.”

Chuck was still squinting at her. “You mean that, don’t you?”

“Every word. But I have to go.” She didn’t really have to, Sarah thought. She could stay and play video games with Chuck and his friends, and it would probably be no harm, no foul. But that would only prolong the hurt, instead of ripping off the band-aid. “I have a whole bunch of stuff to take care of before the move.”

“Oh. OK.” Chuck shoved his hands in his pockets, pulled them out again. Hesitantly, he offered one to her. “I don’t really know what to say. It’s been fun, and good luck with your new job?”

“Thanks. I’ll need it.” This time, Sarah shook the hand proffered. She mustered up one final smile for Chuck. “Good-bye.”

And with that said, she headed out into the rain. She didn’t bother to hurry her pace, as it didn’t matter. Her hair and clothes would be drenched by the time she reached her car either way. She didn’t look back to see if Chuck was watching her go. Within a few seconds of leaving him behind, she was soaked to the bone.

But her eyes were dry.

Her phone beeped with a new text message just as she got to her car. She pulled her phone out, her eyebrows lifting when she saw that it was from Connor.

_Tonight. Sunset. Don’t be late._


	7. Sarah the Daredevil

She met up with Scopes at the elevator. The security guard for the building had gone home for the night, so that there was only a logbook and the swipe of a building ID to get past the turnstiles. Sarah had no idea what Scopes had done to avoid both. She had simply vaulted over said turnstile. For a year in the tenth grade, she had been on Clementine High School’s girl’s varsity track team, doing any event with hurdles. She’d always had long legs. It felt good to use them now.

“Hold the elevator?” she called, seeing Scopes climb in ahead of her. She could handle his funk for the thirty seconds it would take to get up to the fifth floor.

He hesitated before slapping a hand onto the edge of the door nearest him. Sarah slid through the gap between the doors and immediately positioned herself as far away from Scopes in the elevator as she could. She had changed from the sundress she had worn to end things with Chuck into her cat burglary gear, an outfit she would officially be burning after tonight was over and the crew was safely away. The long-sleeved shirt had once been black, but multiple washes over the years had faded it to a soft grey, and the trousers weren’t quite as skin-tight as the shirt, as they had to allow for various tool pockets, since she didn’t want to wear a tool-belt. She had all of the tools she would need for tonight stashed in pockets that she had memorized.

She should have been excited. Her nerves should have been dancing through her midsection. After all, this was her last con, and it was an exciting one, very hands-on. She would get to use all of her skills and her physicality on this job.

But she didn’t feel excited at all.

She eyed Scopes and his idea of mission clothing. He’d worn dark clothing like her, but his pants were too short, exposing a full inch of white tube socks.

“Excited?” he asked, blinking at her from behind smudged lenses.

Sarah shrugged. “Almost done,” she said, and watched the numbers above the door climb until they were on the fifth floor. Scopes let her exit the elevator first, which was oddly gentlemanly for him.

Connor was waiting for them by the front door, and as always, he was a mess. Sarah had worked a couple of jobs with him before, and zero hour meant that Connor showed up in a rumpled shirt, nicotine-fueled mess. He had a cigarette practically dripping from his fingers as he waited by the door, pacing in short, sharp bursts. His head shot up when Sarah and Scopes came in. “It took you long enough!”

Sarah made a show of checking her watch. “We’re five minutes early.”

“Ah. OK. Right.” Connor took a long drag off of the cigarette and tossed the butt into the fichus. He pulled his hand through his hair, disordering it messily. “Terrence is already here. Let’s get this show on the road.”

It felt strange to be setting up this final part without Ben. Sarah prepped for her part of the con in the conference room, donning the harness for the last time, double-checking and triple-checking every clasp and carabineer. She put her mask on, her protection against any failure on Scopes’s part to kill the security cameras, but she didn’t pull it over her face quite yet. Instead, she took her time adjusting the earpiece and the headset she would wear that would keep her in constant contact with her team. She was the only one actually going into the office tonight. The others’ part had been done (Terrence, the absent Ben, and Connor), and Scopes would be disabling the systems so that Sarah could get in and get out without problem. So only Scopes was prepping in the conference room, too.

“Where _is_ Terrence?” she asked him as she adjusted the headset yet again.

Scopes shrugged.

_That’s less than helpful. Thanks, Scopes._

Conner had declared 10:13 go-time. Scopes had four minutes to break security, giving Sarah a six minute window to get in and out and grab her quarry, giving them seven minutes to pack up and abandon the office. The original plan was for them to return to work the very next day as upstanding lawyers and staff, but Sarah had no idea what the exit plan was now that Ben had left and Connor had changed the rules.

 _Speaking of Connor_ …

He came in, dragging on his fifth or sixth cigarette since she had arrived, and grinned at her. She interpreted excitement, nerves, all of which she should have been feeling. “You ready?” he asked her as Sarah, for the final time, secured her rope on the hook she would dismantle as part of her own part of the exit.

She bounced her shoulders up and down. It was time to start getting her blood flowing for the con. “Sure.”

“Say…you want to maybe hit the town after this? Get a drink with me?” Connor’s smile widened. “I’ll buy.”

Sarah shook her head. “Thanks, but…” She had her plane ticket for the next morning all ready to go, but she lied now. “I’m on the Red Eye out of here. We do this and I’m gone.”

“You were serious about that?”

“As serious as a heart attack.” Sarah tugged on the rope to make sure it was really secure. She and Ben had spent hours replacing the windows on the office below them for what would have been a brilliant long-term con, but now it was a simple matter of breaking and entering. The part of her that lived for the con, for the game of it all, couldn’t help but fight down the disappointment that her final con would be nothing harder than that. “And besides…”

She was leaving this life. It was now or never.

“I’m not interested,” she finished, and turned back to focus on her harness. “I never was, and I don’t think I’ll ever be.”

Connor’s face turned ugly. “So that’s how it is.”

Sarah shrugged again. This time, there was nothing bouncy about the move. “Sorry,” she said, not bothering to put any apology in her voice whatsoever.

“Yeah, I bet you are.” Connor scowled, and blew a cloud of smoke in Sarah’s face.

Sarah waited until he’d stalked away to cough. “Asshole,” she muttered under her breath, and checked through her pockets to make sure all of the tools she would need. She pulled out the knife first. The blade had been sharpened just so, and a simple push of a finger sent the blade flicking out. She pulled a hair from her head and tested the edge, nodding in satisfaction when the blade sliced through the hair with no pressure.

She was all set.

Thankfully, Connor had had time to get over his sulk by the time go-time rolled around. Ten minutes before the plan was to go into motion, Sarah began stretching, limbering up, working out any stiffness that would hamper her movements later. When Connor came back into the room, she was doing a handstand just for the hell of it.

“Quit screwing around,” Connor snapped.

_OK, maybe he hasn’t gotten over his snit after all._

Sarah returned to her feet and sat on the edge of the conference table. She rolled her eyes at Scopes, who was so focused on his trio of monitors in the corner, monitors that Connor would be responsible for helping break down, that he didn’t respond.

She missed Ben. As a way to leave the con game, this was entirely anticlimactic.

“Scopes, how are you doing?” Connor asked.

“Almost ready.”

“Sarah?”

“I’m good.”

“OK, go-time in two minutes.” Connor strode out again.

That was strange. They hadn’t synchronized their watches. But then, maybe Connor had stopped buying into the old superstitions on the con, like Jack Burton and Ben Arnold still preached. Her own practices were less set. They usually only involved going out for ice cream upon completion of a job. Single-scoop if things went well. A double-scoop if things went pear-shaped, and a triple-scoop if things had gone to hell in a hand-basket. Thankfully, Sarah had never had to order a triple-scoop.

She perched at the window when Connor came back in and Scopes began to work. When Scopes gave her the nod, she grabbed the rope with her gloved hands, and, mask down, lowered herself backward down the side of the building. It wasn’t the freefall that she had done the week before, when she had been giddy about nagging Chuck into a date. Tonight’s actions required precision, and they required not thinking about the melodramatic little scene in the rain from earlier that day.

Thankfully, said rain had cleared, as the Weather Channel had predicted. Sarah repelled down the building until she was directly one floor below the offices of Morton, Platte and Gideon. With Scopes’s voice still muttering technical specs that she hadn’t the slightest hope of ever understanding, she gently swung forward until her toes were gripping the window ledge through the soft-soled boots.

“I’m on the ledge,” she said.

Here was the tricky part. If Scopes hadn’t worked the codes exactly right, Sarah’s next actions would blow their cover to shreds. She could only pray as she leaned down. She and Ben had replaced the windows in the office with panels that would—if she had installed them right—pop right out and then pop right in again. The change was supposed to happen a couple of months before the job went down to ensure that the people who inhabited the offices on the fourth floor wouldn’t notice the difference.

Now, however, they probably would.

It wasn’t her problem, Sarah reminded herself. Gritting her teeth slightly, she pushed on the window. The panel did as it was meant to do. It popped right out, and her quick hands grabbed it before it could crash to the floor of the office inside. She took a deep breath as she lowered the panel of polycarbonate to the floor, and stepped inside.

The office was laid out similarly to the conference room one floor above, in that the dimensions were exactly the same. The room was dark, but she slipped night-vision goggles on that allowed her to see grain green and black details: a sofa up against one wall that looked like it got a lot of use, a glossy table taking up most of the room, high-tech monitors all along the walls that looked like they were used to give fancy presentations. There was a mini-kitchenette in the corner with the coffee pot silent and empty for the night, as well as a stash of Styrofoam cups and various sweeteners.

A combination break and conference room? What did it matter? Her quarry stood on the wall above the couch. It figured, she thought, scoping the room through the goggles as she moved to that wall, her feet silent on the nice carpet. Only a software company like Boston Techtronics would keep a priceless painting in their break room.

It really did take all kinds.

She switched the goggles to a different setting to make sure there weren’t any nasty surprises hidden around the painting, which looked pretty generic to be priceless. Art, however, was art, and being an art thief meant stealing some crazy things for crazy people at times. She had learned the hard way to look for traps.

Seeing none now, she pulled the knife from a hip pocket and flicked the blade open. It took a steady hand to cut the painting right from the frame, but that was the one thing she always had going for her. She couldn’t always lie to save a con, sometimes she wasn’t the fastest person on her feet, but her hands, her hands were always steady.

She could’ve been a surgeon, as Jack Burton had pointed out once when she had visited him in prison.

Sarah didn’t think she was smart enough to be a surgeon, as that meant going to medical school and years of education. Maybe…

It was probably too late for that anyway. She began in the left-hand corner and worked her way down, and started from the origin corner and worked her way across. Her hand didn’t shake once. She cut her way down from there, and paused when her knuckles brushed against something. Though it cost precious seconds she really didn’t want to waste, she moved the canvas aside. Was the frame irregular? That seemed a bit off, considering that the painting was going to fund her retirement.

It wasn’t the frame, but a small, thumb-sized piece of plastic. Sarah frowned at it, turning it over in the light and trying to figure out what it was, and why it would be hidden behind a picture frame.

She didn’t know what alerted her first. Maybe it was some noise, barely audible, maybe not. Sarah’s head snapped back. The hair on the back of her neck prickled. She wasn’t alone in the office. There was somebody else in there with her.

Because the job always came first, Sarah made quick work of cutting off the last side of the painting. She rolled it carefully, making sure not to squeeze too hard, though she could feel her heart pounding in her chest, bumping against her sternum, its beat echoing in her throat. One hand tucked the painting into the sealed, protective tube, dropping the plastic piece inside with it, while the other worked rope free to give her slack so that she could sneak to the doorway and peer out.

The smart thing to do would be to race to the window and climb back up to the fifth floor.

She paced to the door, carefully peeked her head around the corner. There was a hallway beyond, leading to other offices in the same layout as the law offices a floor above. Only here, the doors to the offices all sat open, and the glow of computer screens that hadn’t been turned off gently washed the hall with soft white light. If she turned left, she would head into the main part of the building, where her desk would have been. Had she imagined the noise? Her hearing was pretty near perfect, so she figured she hadn’t, which only meant bad things. Connor had checked to make sure the office was clear before the con had gone down. That was his job, and he was crew-leader. He was good at his job.

“Hey,” she said, barely a whisper since the headset microphone was actually a good model. “I think somebody might be in the office with me.”

There was no answer.

“Hello?” Sarah asked, and tapped her headset. She heard her finger thud against the mic, so she knew that it wasn’t faulty. “Anybody there?”

Dead communications, and she wasn’t alone in the office.

 _OK, it is_ definitely _time to go_.

Sarah stared to turn to head back to the window, but something in the corner of her eye made her head whip around the other way down the hallway. She caught a glimpse of something racing down the hallway, a green-black blur against the black background. Her first instinct was to give chase, though she had no idea why. She needed to get the hell out of there.

Still, she hesitated a split-second.

And that was all it took.

To her left, there was a crashing noise, an explosion that obliterated the silence of the office. Sarah’s hand tightened around the mostly-forgotten knife in her palm, and she skipped backwards, nearly stumbling over her own feet. Only her natural grace kept her erect.

Every muscle in her body froze when she saw the beams of light dance across the hallway carpet. There was no mistaking those.

Indeed, a second later, she heard, “Freeze! Police!”

She didn’t have to think about it. She turned and ran for the windows. If she climbed fast, she could be well out of sight and able to get away by the time the police came to search the break room. She might not have time to pop the window back in, but it would allow her to get away.

She heard pounding footsteps in the hall as she skidded to a halt by the window, and started to grab her rope.

Only for it to dangle limply from her hand.

 _What the hell_?

It took the implication a few seconds—seconds she didn’t have—to sink in. Instead of extending tautly to the fifth floor, her rope now dangled off the side of the Petersen Building. It was, by all intents and purposes, worthless.

What the hell had happened? Had Connor been notified that the police were coming and decide to drop the con? Had the others gotten away?

It was every man—or woman—for himself.

The beams of light raced into the room, followed by the cops themselves. Sarah half-turned in shock.

Bad idea. One of the beams danced right over her night-vision goggles, and she cried out as a spike of pain drove right into her eyeball. She blinked hard, but she could see nothing but blinding white.

She could hear fine, though. “Freeze!” the police officer shouted. “Don’t move!”

Sarah figured they had guns trained on her, but she couldn’t see them, so it hardly mattered. She heard the thump of police boots on the carpet as the cops ran at her, and in that moment, one thought overtook her.

_I can’t go to prison on my last con. I’m done with this life._

She did the only thing she could: she threw her shoulder at the other window that she and Ben had replaced, and launched herself out into the night. Her gloved hands scrabbled blindly for the rope.

She missed.

And then there was nothing but the weightless feeling of plummeting, headfirst, into the emptiness.


	8. Sarah the Fugitive

Sarah had been in life and death situations before, an unfortunate side of her day-job that she had been really hoping to leave behind, so she understood one very important thing about staring death in the eyeball: there was absolutely no flashing of your life in front of your eyes. What happened, happened. There was absolutely no rumination involved. Just you, death, and whatever was going on.

She hit the window with her shoulder, going solely on what she remembered about the room. She couldn’t see a thing. She only felt the sudden slap of pain—not even actual pain, really, a pop of pressure—as her shoulder connected with the fake glass, and then she was airborne.

Her hands missed the rope. She felt it whip past her fingers and time abruptly dumped all meaning out the window. It took nanoseconds to launch herself into the Los Angeles night, or maybe it took eons. She fell face-first, her mouth open to scream.

Not a sound emerged.

She fell for years. She fell for no time at all, wind buffeting against her mask and shoulders, while her arms flailed and her eyes saw nothing but the burned after-images of the policeman’s flashlight.

When something slapped into her outstretched palm, the fingers of her left hand flexed by instinct and tightened.

In that instant, Sarah went from falling face-first to feet-first. Shit! Her other hand lashed out, grabbing the rope, too. It was enough to take some of the strain, but her left shoulder still exploded into a fiery mass of agony. Sarah cried out and nearly bit her tongue, her eyes watering, but by some miracle, she didn’t let go. Dangling in mid-air like a demented circus acrobat, she tried to think past the pain, the searing blindness, to figure out what the hell had just happened.

The rope, when she had jumped through the second window, must have wrapped around the bevel between the windows. While she had been plummeting toward the earth, the other side of the rope had been racing toward the fourth floor.

Whimpering, her breath coming in gasping pants, Sarah yanked on the rope, pulling her right hand above her left. Sheer upper body strength on her right side enabled her to wrap the taut rope around her right hand once, so that she could pry her left hand loose. The useless limb dropped to her side. She didn’t think she’d dislocated her shoulder, but it certainly hurt.

“Police! Don’t move!”

Sarah could only assume the shout came from above, since she couldn’t see a blessed thing. She wrapped her leg around the rope and began to lower herself down, her heart pounding in her ears.

“I said _don’t move_! We will shoot!”

And like that, Sarah felt something tug on the side of the rope that was connected to her harness. _Oh, hell, they’re going to drag me back up the building._

Since they had her anyway, she let go of the other side of the rope, her right hand burning. If she’d pulled off her glove right then, she would have seen angry red stripes against the whitened skin, but she was more focused on finding a way, any way out of this solution that didn’t involve going to prison for years.

Her hand closed around her knife.

_I have got to be barking mad._

Sarah yanked it out of her hip pocket and flipped the blade out. She had no idea how far she had fallen. She had no idea where the bloody ground was. She couldn’t see a damned thing except those bright streaks of light the flashlight had seared across her corneas.

She was absolutely insane.

The agony made her scream when she brought her left arm up to steady the rope, but her right hand made quick work of slashing through the rope. And just like that, she was falling all over again.

  


* * *

  


Her feet hit the water with a splash less than an instant later.

Holdman’s Pond was something of a local favorite for the neighborhood, with its well-tended little park and running paths. Business and urbanization had spread over the neighborhood, though, so the Petersen Building was almost right above the quaint little pond. Sarah had, while installing the pop-out windows, admired the pond from afar, as it really was quite pretty.

She had never imagined that she would be landing in it.

It wasn’t quite so pretty close-up for that matter. It smelled like sewage, which made her shudder inwardly, but now wasn’t the time to be girly. Her arm and shoulder and neck still on fire, Sarah threw herself forward into the water. The police, once they got over their shock would start to—

BAM! BAM!

Open fire.

 _Bloody hell_.

Sarah took one last deep breath and dove deep into the pond. She kept her eyes closed, swimming with half a butterfly stroke. She kept her injured arm tucked close at her side, though it made the edges of her (nonexistent) vision burn with a red haze, the water pushing against the injury. Maybe she had dislocated it, or at least partially dislocated it.

That was a problem for later. Right now, she had to worry about the police that were shooting at her, and if they had back-up.

She dove deeper, where the bullets wouldn’t penetrate, and concentrated her entire being on swimming. _Don’t think about what’s in this water, don’t think about what’s in this water_. The tube with the painting bumped against her spine with every stroke. She had brought the waterproof one, but with the way things had been going tonight, she probably hadn’t sealed it right.

_Don’t think about that. Get to safety. Run now, worry later._

Her good hand brushed against the slimy, reedy bottom of the pond. She had reached the other side. Without missing a beat, she began to run. Apparently, the water—or perhaps the toxins inside it—had done her eyes some good. She could make out some shapes, blurry green against black. It wasn’t much, but it would have to be enough.

Thanking whatever listening deity that she stuck to a morning workout routine with religious devout, she sprinted into the pretty copse of trees surrounding Holdman’s Pond, and disappeared into the night.

  


* * *

  


Account balance: $0.00.

Sarah stared at the screen in absolute disbelief and blinked, hoping it was just the lingering remnants of terrible eyesight. The action did nothing to change the readout on the screen in front of her. She didn’t reach out and punch the ATM machine, though in that moment, she really, really wanted to.

But the first rule of the con was draw only the attention you want to you.

And Sarah did not need any more attention of any kind right now. Sarah needed to drop off the face of the earth, and she needed to do so fast.

She’d lost the police by darting into the trees and using them as camouflage until the park led into a pretty, ramshackle suburb of sorts. She had sprinted through backyards and hopped fences, and run along the sidewalk, dodging well around every pool of yellow light from the streetlamps until it felt like she had run for miles. She would have given anything to run through a backyard where people dried their clothing by hand, but this was the twenty-first century, and Burbank to boot. So she hadn’t had a chance to drop her insanely conspicuous black burglary clothing entirely.

Instead, she had used her good hand, thankfully her right, and had carefully, artfully cut away the sleeves and a few inches off of the hem, exposing her midriff. Cutting out a revealing neckline took a little more work and artistry with one hand, but she had managed. She had left the pants the way they came.

Sure, she looked a bit like a nightwalker, but that was the best she could do until she could get real clothes again. Her mask, gloves, and the painting tube had been dumped under the porch of an abandoned house in the neighborhood, where she could come back for them later. She had taken the odd little piece of plastic with her since it wouldn’t be conspicuous in one of the pockets of her now-dry pants.

Now, dried off, her hair back in a sunny ponytail, her eyes were the only thing wet about her. The ATM card she had carried on her person had been for her emergency funds, the one nobody knew about.

And those were gone.

Sarah turned away from the ATM, grabbing the card as it spat out of the slot automatically. She slid it back into her pocket, to be ditched at a later location. Somebody had taken her emergency stash, which probably meant the regular stash, which she couldn’t access now because that was back in her hotel room.

She had gone there first and had hidden around the corner, watching to make sure it was safe.

It wasn’t. Police cars had barreled up in a flurry of red and blue lights, their piercing screams all that much louder because Sarah knew they were coming for her. No, not for her. They were coming for Stacee Kemp. Upon receiving her new ID from Connor, she had put her room in that name, and her bank accounts under that name. Nothing but Connor, Terrence, and Scopes could actually link her to the name Sarah Walker since Sarah Walker was a ghost to everybody except those three, Carly, Ben, and Chuck Bartowski.

The fact that the police had shown up at her hotel right away told her one thing: she should have worried more about the exit strategy.

Since _she_ had been the exit strategy.

Now, with the horrifying clarity of hindsight, she could see it all. Connor, Scopes, and Terrence had set her up. They had cleaned out her emergency accounts, and they had probably cleaned out her regular accounts, too. The con hadn’t been to rob the fourth floor, Boston Techtronics. The con had been to rob her of her nest egg.

She wanted to hit something. She wanted to grab a chainsaw and _destroy_ , splintering everything nearby into a thousand pieces before she started in on the three that had betrayed her and robbed her.

Outwardly, her hands didn’t even shake.

Only draw the attention you want, she told herself.

She kept her gait easy as she strolled through a street filled with coffee shops and fast food restaurants, possibly a draw to local college students. Even though it was nearing midnight, there were still a lot of people around, and it was easy to get lost in a crowd. She deliberately kept her distance, though she’d tried to scrub the worst of the sickly sewage smell in a gas station bathroom, but she looked like any other twenty-something woman enjoying a night out.

Inside, a cold rage began to spread like ice. Rage was easier than fear, she knew. Rage was something that could be controlled, focused like a laser beam, turned on an enemy who had wronged her. If she kept her mind on the rage, she could imagine Connor’s smug face. Could imagine her fist plowing a hole through said face, even though her left arm throbbed insistently and her right arm ached with exhaustion. Could imagine kicking the unctuous and ugly Terrence in the groin. Could imagine smashing Scopes’s face into the keyboard hard enough that he would choke on his own teeth.

Rage was easier than the fear of prison, of being penned up, of having nothing, not even her own name.

And rage was a hell of a lot easier than the shame and mortification that made her want to kick herself repeatedly. She had been had. Her last con and she had been played like a damn fiddle.

But it wasn’t rage that made her hand shake as she finally found a payphone and slipped the pocket change she had been patiently gathering on her walk—a quarter here, a dime there, two nickels in the gutter—into the slot. She took a deep breath before she dialed the number from memory.

_Please be there. Please be there._

“Hi!” the voice chirped over the line.

Immediately, everything inside Sarah turned to water in relief. “Oh my god, Carly. I—”

“You’ve reached Carly’s phone! I’m not available right now, but if you need to contact me, you can leave a message for me either here or on my friend Gia’s phone. Hope you’re having a nice day!”

_No, I am really, really not having a nice day._

Gia’s phone was a code Carly had developed for the few friends she trusted in the game. She was on a con. It could be long-term, it could be over tomorrow, but she probably would be out of contact for a while.

The _beep_ after Carly’s sarcastically cheerful message echoed through her. Sarah’s throat immediately went thick, and she squeezed her eyes shut against a hot flood of tears. _Do not cry, do_ not _cry_.

“It’s me,” she said, trying to make her voice sound even and controlled. It wavered anyway. “I, um, hope you get this soon. I need some help. My—my uncle’s sick. Everything’s just gone, and I don’t know how to get it back, and they’re looking for me, and I don’t know what they know, and I could really, really use a friend right now. When you get this, please get in touch.”

She hung the phone up and indulged herself, for a minute, pushing her forehead against the side of the payphone and letting the heat of unshed tears flood against her closed eyelids. She didn’t let any spill. Signs of recent tears always drew attention, and she needed to vanish, get as far away as she could. She had a stash buried in San Antonio that would help her if she could get to it, but with the police looking for her and only a few dollars in her pocket, it might take days.

And with Connor and the others having burned her, as the term went, so well...

She was fairly certain she didn’t have days.

She didn’t have anything but a rapidly swelling shoulder, a cut-up shirt that smelled like mold and pond, and her wits, which weren’t even good anymore because they hadn’t warned her of the massive backstabbing that went down in the offices of Morton, Platte and Gideon.

A tear slipped out and tracked its way down her cheek. She moved to brush it away, sniffling and furious with herself because of it. Now she would have to lay low until the tears vanished and it was safe to move about without attracting undue attention. Carefully, she slipped into the shadows behind the coffee shop next to the payphone. She crouched down by the dumpsters and watched the road for signs of police cars.

As she did so, she rubbed her good hand over her face. _Think, Sarah, think_. There were easy ways of scaring up cash in a hurry, cash that would get her to San Antonio. She was a fair hand at lifting wallets, but that was with two good hands and not smelling like a swamp. And she either had to get far away very fast, or go to ground. If Connor and the others had burned her, the police would probably put Stacee Kemp’s picture up on the news.

Connor wouldn’t want her coming after him, after all. She was Jack Burton’s daughter. She wasn’t dangerous, per se, but he had messed with con-artist royalty. Best to get the princess behind bars quickly, which meant the police likely had everything on her and might even know some of her habits, depending what Connor had seen fit to give them.

She imagined punching him again, but it didn’t make her feel any better.

While she waited for the signs of her tears to vanish, she emptied her pockets. She had memorized the vital contents, but maybe there was something…

She frowned as she drew out the soggy business card. It was almost all white on the front, with a running stick figure in the middle and the words “Nerd Herd” inscribed on it. She flipped to the other side, remembering the amount of heat in Chuck’s eyes, the way he had stepped close as he’d pushed it into her pocket. She’d kept that card on her all week, against all odds, even after she’d ended things on the pier earlier that day.

The pond water had made the ink run, especially the hand-written missive below the printed information—Chuck’s work phone, cell phone, email. He had written his address below it. Why, she had no idea, and the ink was illegible now, but the number of times she’d pulled that card out, to play it between her fingers while she thought or daydreamed or whatever, meant that didn’t matter. She had long ago memorized the address.

She wiped her eyes, rose to her feet, and walked off.

###

She felt like a thief sneaking into the nice courtyard, with its tiled fountain and its nice foliage, things that told her that decent, well-off people lived here. But then, she was a thief, so it was deserved. Chuck had said he lived with his sister, and that she was a doctor, so it made sense. She didn’t figure it was possible to live in such a nice complex on a Buy More salary.

She scoped out the apartment from the shadowed entryway to the courtyard. Most of the lights were off in his apartment, save for one bedroom off to the side. Should she wake him, if he had gone to bed? She knew what she was doing was a bad idea. Chuck was a nice guy who didn’t break laws and who paid his taxes on time, and she had essentially dumped him on the Santa Monica Pier. There was absolutely no reason for him to be nice to her, save that he was genuinely a nice person.

She would pay him back, she thought. She needed only enough for a bus ticket to San Antonio, and she would pay Chuck back first thing before she left for Europe or Asia or someplace where she could hide out in peace until she figured out what to do next.

He didn’t need to know about what had happened tonight. He also didn’t need to know that she was the world’s biggest idiot.

She crept toward the apartment. Maybe the light that was on, maybe that was Chuck playing a video game or on his computer or something vaguely cute and nerdy. She didn’t want to wake more people than she had to, and the fewer people she faced in this state, the better.

She was in luck. The light shone through Chuck’s window, and it appeared to be coming through some sort of gaming device. Chuck sat on the bed, a controller in his hands, his eyes intent on the screen. He looked oddly wholesome, once again in the black pants and white shirt that denoted his work uniform. The tie and pocket protector were nowhere to be seen, though, and the white shirt was unbuttoned over an undershirt.

His friend Morgan was sitting in the desk chair in almost exactly the same pose, but there wasn’t anything she could do about that. Before she could lose her nerve, Sarah raised her hand and rapped softly on the window.

Morgan didn’t look up from the game. Chuck, however, jumped and nearly lost his seat on the bed. His head snapped around, his eyes meeting hers through the window blinds. Shock quickly turned into confusion, which migrated to suspicion and unease.

He held up a hand toward her, telling her to wait, and turned to say something to Morgan. Morgan gave his best friend a puzzled look, shrugged, and got up without a word, leaving the room. He didn’t see Sarah at the window.

The instant Morgan was out of sight, Chuck set the controller on the bedspread and crossed to the window. “Sarah?” he asked uncertainly, once he’d pulled it open. “What are you doing here?”

Sarah opened her mouth to answer, but, at that moment, did the last thing she wanted to do: right there outside of Chuck Bartowski’s window, she broke down in the tears that had threatened all along.


	9. Sarah the Water Fountain

She had to hand it to Chuck: either he dealt with crying, almost-hysterical females on a regular basis (which would later make her wonder about the types of customers that patronized the Buy More Nerd Herd help desk), or he just had a knack for it, as he did not slam the window in her face and run from the room screaming. He did give a rather startled yelp noise, but she didn’t hold that against him, as she was too busy trying to stop the damnable flood of tears from wrecking her already-ruined night even further.

_Too damned late for that, isn’t it?_

“Sarah?” She felt a hand on her elbow—her good one, thankfully, as the other arm was still throbbing from shoulder to wrist—and it was warm against the skin that had long gone clammy with fear and pond scum residue. “Are you OK?”

Sarah couldn’t do much more than shake her head. She wiped furiously at her streaming eyes and curled forward.

The hand on her elbow changed to a grip and pulled, gently. “OK, then. Come inside. C’mon, whatever it is, it’s going to be all right. C’mon.”

She wanted nothing more than to follow that warmth, but Sarah dug her feet in, pulling her elbow loose. “I can’t,” she managed to say. She could barely think, not with her entire torso shaking from the suppressed sobs, and her breath catching and stuttering in her throat, and her eyes dripping, but she knew that going into Chuck’s room would be bad. They were still in a grey area, legally, but for now he wasn’t technically committing any felonies yet. Or maybe he was. She had stopped knowing a single thing the instant she had seen those police beams cross the floor in the offices of Boston Techtronics.

She heard the confusion in his voice when he said, “Er, OK. Sarah, are you hurt?”

Sarah shook her head.

“Did something happen?” Panic was starting to hint at the edges of Chuck’s voice. “OK, dumb question, something obviously happened. _What_ happened?”

Sarah only shook her head again. There seemed to be no stopping the tears, not when they kept flowing, clogging the back of her throat and turning her nose the color of a tomato. She curled forward into Chuck’s warmth, pushed her forehead against the soft cotton of his undershirt and breathed in. He smelled so good and wholesome and clean and—she broke out into yet another sheet of tears. It was a foolish move, and she knew it, but she couldn’t stop.

That apparently decided Chuck. He grabbed her elbow again, but it was only to push her away so that he could step outside. He guided her until she was sitting on the windowsill and he was kneeling on the ground in front of her, looking up at her. She knew precisely what she looked like—she’d gone to high school, hadn’t she?—so she tried to avert her face, but Chuck just grabbed her chin with a very loose, almost gentle grip.

“Tell me what’s wrong,” he said, and he sounded frazzled, despite how concerned and easy his movements were. “What’s going on, Sarah?”

Sarah opened her mouth, but she had no idea what she could possibly say that would explain _anything_ , not without letting Chuck know everything. “I—I need to borrow some money,” she heard herself say.

That was apparently the last thing Chuck had expected, given the fact that he blinked and rocked back on his heels. “What?”

“Not much.” God, she hated herself. She had nowhere else to go, and she was _here_ , at Chuck Bartowski’s place, and he was so clean, and she was doing nothing but playing him like another one of her cons. Even if she was going to pay him back every cent with interest, come hell or high water. He deserved much better than this, but she simply didn’t have anywhere else to go. “Just—just enough to get to San Antonio.”

“San…” Chuck trailed off and pushed his hand through his hair. “San Antonio? Sarah, what’s going on? Why do you need to go to Texas? Why’s your shirt ripped up, and why, for the love of little apples, are you crying?”

Sarah opened her mouth to reply, but before she knew what she was going to say, a fresh wave of tears started.

“OK, then.” She heard frustration and fear in Chuck’s voice, and she heard him push out a long breath. “Can’t talk yet. Got it. Um, you just cry. Uh, there, there.” He patted her knee. There was a pause before she heard his clothes rustling, and then he rose and put an arm around her shoulders. Unfortunately, he laid his hand right on her bad shoulder. Sarah cried out and nearly fell off the windowsill.

Chuck leapt back as she’d burned him. “Oh my god, you’re hurt! Why didn’t you tell me?”

Sarah swallowed harshly, pushing back at the lump in her throat. “It’s fine,” she tried to say.

But Chuck wasn’t listening. He grabbed her good elbow and helped her to her feet. Before she could protest, he had half-pulled, half-lifted her inside through the window. His grip wasn’t quite iron-like, but it was firm as he pulled her to sit on the edge of the bed, next to his abandoned controller.

“What happened?” he asked, letting her good arm go. Sarah could only watch, mystified, as he crossed to the window and locked it. She should have felt hemmed in and panicked at such a move. She didn’t. “Did somebody do this to you? Did somebody hurt you? Did they hit you?”

Genuine surprise made Sarah look up. “What? No, it’s not like that.”

Chuck plucked up a Kleenex box from his desk and set that on the bed beside her. “It’s OK if you don’t want to tell me. But if somebody did this to you…”

“No, nobody hit me! I got myself into this mess!” And she had, hadn’t she, by being too _stupid_ to see what was happening right in front of her face? Terrence and Scopes and Connor were probably on their way to some Caribbean resort with her money, laughing at her idiocy. It burned, and it made her want to cry all over again, but she forced back the tears. “The less you know about it, the better, but the bottom line is that I’m the world’s biggest idiot, and I shouldn’t have come here, but I didn’t have anywhere else to go since the police know about everywhere else I _would_ go, and I’m stupid for even considering coming _here_ because you’re a good person, Chuck, and you don’t need to get wrapped up in this mess.” She broke off on a sob and grabbed desperately for the Kleenex box.

Chuck, meanwhile, outright gaped, his mouth open a little bit. After a few seconds, he collected himself. “I’m sorry, did you just say police?”

Before Sarah could answer, though, Chuck’s bedroom door flew open and Morgan appeared. “Chuck, dude, you are never going to believe what Skip just—oh. Wow. Uh. Hey, Sarah.”

Sarah bit down on her lip, hard, and didn’t look straight at Morgan. She looked like hell, and it was bad enough that Chuck had to see her like this, but now Morgan, too? “Morgan,” she said.

Chuck gave Morgan a pained look. “Little busy here,” he said between his teeth.

“Oh. Right. And I get that, I really do, but you’re not going to believe what Skip just texted me.”

“Morgan—”

“It’s about Sarah!”

Sarah froze.

“She’s on the news, dude. She fell off a building!”

“ _What_?” Chuck’s head whipped around from Morgan to Sarah, the shock naked on his face. Sarah didn’t look at him. She just crumpled the tissue in her hand.

 _Oh god, now here it comes_.

But Chuck’s voice was deceptively calm when he spoke next. Startled, Sarah stole a glance at him, but he had turned to face Morgan. “Hey, buddy, I’m going to need to call in the Suzie Keilman favor.”

“The Suzie Keil—are you sure, dude?”

“Dead sure.”

Morgan sounded nervous. “What do you need?”

“Go home and don’t tell anybody Sarah is here. I’ll call you later.”

“You’re going to waste the Suzie Keilman favor on _that_?”

Chuck’s voice took on a strained quality she was already starting to become familiar with. She had caused a similar tone several times the night of the mistaken elevator make-out. “Morgan, now?” he asked.

“Oh. Right.” Morgan, instead of leaving, headed into the bedroom.

“Front door,” Chuck said. “Window’s locked.”

“OK.” And Morgan vanished.

Chuck stayed silent for a moment after he was gone, still facing the door to his room so that Sarah could see his profile. His face was absolutely unreadable, which was a first. His openness had been one of the most attractive things about him, but that was gone now.

“Stay there,” Chuck said.

“What?”

“Don’t move. I’ll be right back.” And he left her alone in his bedroom, which was an awfully trusting move, considering. But then, he didn’t really know the truth about her, so she supposed that it wouldn’t have crossed his mind that she could grab his valuables and run. Not that she wanted to. She was more interested in looking around the room and seeing where Chuck lived, what he surrounded himself with on a day-to-day basis. She recognized absolutely none of the movies from the posters on the walls, or any of the book titles in his shelves, or the action figures placed at strategic locations around his room. But she did notice that he was actually pretty tidy. The bed was made and while things weren’t regimented in a way that said neat-freak, he kept a tidy living space.

If her arm hadn’t been throbbing like nothing else, and she weren’t disgusting from the pond and the tears, and oh, yeah, if she weren’t scared out of her wits and frustrated and confused and just exhausted, she might have poked around. Instead, she just picked up another tissue, and blew her nose.

Chuck walked back in right then, of course. He wasn’t alone.

_Holy hell, how many people are going to see me in this state? Invite the whole world in, Chuck!_

Sarah pushed back on her irritation and mortification. The man following Chuck into the room looked alert, even though he had a night’s worth of stubble on his face and his hair was obviously rumpled from sleep. He was also only wearing boxers and from the looks of things, he worked out _quite_ a bit.

“Whoa,” he said as soon as he saw her. “You weren’t lying.”

Chuck rolled his eyes, and Sarah wondered why the stranger would possibly have thought he was lying. “Devon, this is Sarah. Sarah, my sister’s boyfriend, Devon. I told him about your problem,” and he met her eyes deliberately here, as if trying to pass a message by his thoughts alone, “and he’s going to take care of your shoulder.”

Instantly, distress sprang up. “Chuck, I told you, I’m fine.”

“I think it might be dislocated,” Chuck told Devon, who must be Captain Awesome, ignoring her completely. “Can you just check? She doesn’t have insurance—the Buy More insurance doesn’t kick in for a couple more weeks—and I’m worried she might have seriously hurt herself.”

Buy More insurance? _What the hell_? In that moment, Sarah understood; Chuck must have told Devon that she was a coworker.

Devon, however, looked conflicted. “Chuckster, I don’t think I should. She should really go to a hospital.”

“Devon, please. Just this once? Just check, and if it’s bad, I’ll take her to the hospital.”

Sarah was torn between tears and pointing out that she was sitting right there, thank you very much. _I should never have come here_ , she thought again, huddling miserably while Chuck pulled Devon aside and argued with him. Both men were talking under their breath, so she couldn’t hear what they were saying, but she could imagine it. She looked pathetic. Looked? She was pathetic.

Whatever Chuck said to Devon seemed to work, as the latter approached her after a minute and couched down in front of her, just as Chuck had earlier. “Let’s take a look at that shoulder, eh?”

“You don’t need to. It’s fine, I swear—ooh.” Sarah flinched when Devon reached out and touched her arm. He raised an eyebrow at her, and she scowled. “OK, fine, it hurts.”

“How bad? Scale of one to ten?”

The mattress shifted to her right and Sarah looked over to see that Chuck had sat down beside her on the bed. She looked back at Devon. “I guess a six or a seven, considering.”

Carefully, Devon felt along her arm, giving her a sympathetic look every time she hissed at the stabs of pain. “What did you do to it?”

“I wrenched it. I was running, just goofing around, and I started to trip, so I grabbed the edge of a—a table,” Sarah decided, and hoped the lie wasn’t as lame as it sounded in her ears. “And I wrenched it a little bit. It’s really, really not a big deal.” She bit off a curse as Devon’s fingers reached her shoulder and agony radiated from her left ear to her chest. Her good hand bunched into a fist around the comforter. She nearly jumped when Chuck picked it up and held her hand with both of his own.

Devon, meanwhile, frowned thoughtfully. “Almost done,” he told Sarah, who bit her tongue over another curse.

Finally, an eternity later, he pulled his hand back and gave her another sympathetic look. “I can’t say definitively without looking at an X-ray, but it feels like it might just be a slight subluxation.”

“A what?” Chuck asked, still holding onto Sarah’s hand.

“Chances are, she—you,” Devon said, looking at Sarah, “just strained the joint a bit, and it’s going to be sore for a few days, but I don’t feel comfortable telling you that without you at least getting it X-rayed.”

“If it’s that, what can she do about it? Is it bad?”

“Over the counter pain meds and a sling, and theoretically, you should be right as rain in a few days. But seriously, X-rays.” Devon looked reprovingly from Sarah to Chuck. “You don’t want to do more damage down the road if you treat this improperly, you hear?”

“I’ll take her to the hospital, then. Thanks, Devon.”

“No problem.” Devon rose to his feet and padded out toward the hallway. In the doorway, though, he paused and looked back at Sarah, once again with sympathy. “I hope things get better,” he told her. “Good night, guys.”

“Night, Devon,” Chuck called.

Sarah looked over to ask Chuck what exactly he had told Devon about her that would incur that sort of look, but Chuck was regarding her soberly, his face once again unreadable. He set her hand gently back in her lap and rose, leaving the room. A minute later, he returned with a water glass and four pain pills. Sarah would have pointed out that he didn’t need to do any of that, as she had a high pain tolerance, but that sober look on Chuck’s face terrified her in ways she didn’t understand. She wasn’t sure she could speak.

Obediently, she took the pills and downed the water. It felt like glory to her crying-abused throat.

While she drank, Chuck wheeled the desk chair up to the side of the bed, so that he could sit in front of her. He took the water glass and set it on the desk, and Sarah couldn’t help but notice, not for the first time, how long his arms were.

She pushed that thought from her mind.

Chuck gave her that sober look again. Sarah wanted to cry.

“OK,” he said. “Start from the beginning and tell me exactly what happened.”

And when he put it like that, so simply, Sarah had no choice. She opened her mouth, and the story came spilling out.

###

Chuck finished tucking the final corner of the sheet in. He didn’t look up. “Toss me the other sheet?”

Sarah did so. It wasn’t easy to move without jostling her arm in its makeshift sling, but she managed, awkwardly, to bend and grab the folded sheet Chuck requested. She lobbed it across the bed and said, “I can help, you know.”

“I’ve got it. Sit down or something.” Chuck waved absently at the desk chair in the corner. “You’ve got to be exhausted.”

Sarah bit her lip before she could retort that she wasn’t made of glass, as it wouldn’t help anybody now. Adrenaline and fear had faded, leaving nothing but weariness and general upset behind. And crankiness. Far too much crankiness, which was why she had spent the past ten minutes constantly biting her tongue.

To say the night was not going according to any plan ever written in any rulebook, handbook, or manual would have been an understatement of beyond epic proportions. Of course, the instant she had leapt blindly out of the offices of Boston Techtronics, rules had flown right out that window with her. Now she was sitting in the desk chair of an unfamiliar house, watching a man she had been on only one date with change up the sheets on a strange bed. She could tell he was processing the motherlode of information she had just dropped in his lap, but he was still taking the time to pull the sheets taut, to fuss over the pillows, to make sure everything was comfortable.

She didn’t understand him. At all.

Just as she sat down at the desk chair, there was a knock on the door. Chuck shot a nervous look at her and called, “Come in.”

“Just me, I promise,” said a familiar voice. A few seconds later, Morgan appeared, bearing a tray. “I figured you guys might be hungry, so I just threw a few things together. It’s not much, but…” He shrugged a little as he crossed to the desk and set the tray down. “We had some roast beef in the fridge. You’re not a vegetarian, right?” The last was addressed to Sarah.

She took a look at the tray—it really was just sandwiches and grape sodas and potato chips, tastefully arranged—and felt her throat grow thick again. She’d been blubbering on and off all night. “No, I’m not,” she said. “This is…thank you, Morgan.” She smiled at him, despite the threat of tears.

She actually saw him stumble a little bit over that, but he smiled back. “It’s nothing, really.”

“Oh, yeah, helping commit a felony is nothing,” Chuck muttered, but he was smiling a little, bemused.

Morgan gave him a “duh” look. “You called in the Suzie Keilman favor, dude. I’m getting off easy. Do you two need anything?”

“We’re good,” Chuck said. “Thanks, Morgan.”

“No problem.” And Morgan backed out of the room.

“I feel bad,” Sarah said after a minute. “I don’t want to kick him out of his own bed.” She looked around at Morgan’s room. Unlike Chuck’s, it spoke of a man possibly permanently trapped in a high school mentality, but she didn’t mind. She was just grateful to have any sort of haven, even if there were mostly-naked women on the wall.

“He doesn’t mind. He really is getting off easy, all things considered, with the Suzie Keilman favor.”

“Suzie Keilman?”

“Sorry, Sarah. As the term goes, bros before hos.”

Sarah picked up a chip from the tray and crunched in. “You’re calling me a ho?”

“What? No!” Chuck whirled with such a look of panic on his face that Sarah burst out laughing.

“I’m teasing,” she said, when she could talk again. It had felt good to laugh, even if Chuck still looked mildly panicked. Feeling contrite, she picked up the nearest sandwich and offered it to him. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t laugh, but the look on your face was priceless.”

Chuck sighed. “Yeah, I guess so.”

“I really am sorry.”

“Don’t worry about it.” Chuck waved her off and bit into the sandwich.

Sarah attacked her own meal, hardly surprised that she was ravenous. It was nearing three in the morning and she hadn’t eaten since before the job had started at least eight hours before. Her confession to Chuck in his bedroom had taken nearly an hour, and she could tell he was still trying to figure it all out. In the end, though, he had given her some of his clothes to use as pajamas, and they had come over to Morgan’s in his car. There, she had finally gotten to take a shower and wash the pond funk from her hair. It was hard to do everything one-handed, but in the grand scheme of things, it could be a lot worse.

Chuck wasn’t going to give her the money to get to San Antonio. He hadn’t said as much, but she could read it in his body language. She made him nervous in an entirely new way than before, as she almost see the cogs and wheels and gears at work in his brain as he tried to figure out if he should believe her or not. He’d pulled up the news report that this mysterious Skip person had texted to Morgan, and he’d listened to her account of what had happened, and why.

And now, Sarah thought, he would need time to decide for himself. He hadn’t said as much, but she could see it happening. He had offered her a safe place to stay for the night.

She had accepted.

Which was why she was in Morgan Grimes’s bedroom, while the owner of said chamber slept on his own couch, and Chuck Bartowski made up the bed. She polished off the sandwich and reached to open the soda, still ravenous. It was a lot harder with just the one hand.

“Here, let me get that.” Chuck opened both sodas and handed one to her. Instead of drinking, however, he stared into the can for a long time. “Why do you do it?”

Sarah put the soda can down before she dribbled any down her chin and onto Chuck’s clothes. “What?”

“Con people.” Chuck didn’t look at her. “You’re obviously smart, and beautiful besides, you could do anything you wanted to. So why…steal from people? Why lie like that?”

“I’m not smart,” Sarah said. “A smart person would have seen tonight coming a mile away.”

“I don’t think so. You trusted those guys, right? That’s why betrayals hurt the worst. Nobody ever sees them coming.” Chuck looked troubled as he turned the grape soda can around in his hand, and she remembered, with a sickening jolt, what he had told her about his Stanford days. Was that why he was being so nice? She studied him from under her eyelashes. Was he being nice because he understood what it was like to be in her shoes? Or because he was just genuinely a nice guy?

“You’re right,” she said. “That’s why they hurt. And I guess I’m a con artist because I…don’t really know how to do anything else.”

“You said you were leaving the game. That tonight was supposed to be your last job.”

“It was,” Sarah said, wondering where he was going with this. She felt the same swell of bleak, crushing despair welling up at the edges of her brain, threatening to overwhelm her like it had all night, at the thought of having to go back into the game and start all over again. She pushed it back by staring at the grape soda can in Chuck’s hand.

“What were you going to do after?”

“I don’t know.” Sarah shook her head. “I was going to figure that out tomorrow. Well, today, really.” She glanced at the clock.

“And now?”

Sarah shook her head again. “I don’t know. I don’t have a lot of options.”

“Fair enough. You’re tired. Why don’t you get some sleep? Things will look better tomorrow.”

Sarah didn’t know if they would. Her coworkers had framed her, and she had no idea the extent of the damage or how hard the police were searching for her. And without Chuck’s help, she wasn’t sure how the hell she was going to get to San Antonio without going out and doing some down and dirty robbery, which she found absolutely distasteful, and exhausting.

Still, she rose to her feet and crossed to the bed, giving him a questioning look when he got out of her way. “You’re going home?” she asked as she climbed between the freshly-changed sheets, which felt cool and pleasant against her skin. Her entire body felt abused and sore and just leaden.

Chuck shuffled his feet, uncomfortable. “I thought I’d just hang here, actually. Make sure the police don’t come. Keep a look-out.” He smiled weakly.

Sarah felt the hot threat of tears against the back of her throat all over again. She managed a nod and lay down on her back. Usually she slept on her stomach or side, but with her arm and shoulder in pain, it would be a long, uncomfortable night. “I don’t take up much space,” she said without looking at Chuck. “If you get tired, take the other half of the bed.”

“Thanks, but I remember what happened last time we were anywhere near a bed together.” Chuck sounded amused. “You can’t keep your hands off of me.”

“Fair enough,” Sarah said, and, in spite of everything, fell asleep.

She didn’t see Chuck turn off the lamp, take a seat at the desk, and stare out into the dark street below for a long time.


	10. Sarah the Mental Patient

Sarah was normally the type to come out of sleep quickly, which wasn’t to say she was a morning person. She simply didn’t hit the snooze button until it was absolutely necessary. Once she was awake, she was up, and it was time to face the day.

Wakefulness, however, came slowly now. Sarah struggled through layers of encumbering torpor, not sure why she was doing such when the siren song of sleep still called. Her entire body felt like it was made of stone, heavy and sinking and immovable, but she kicked past that to push open her eyes and look around.

It took a minute for details to filter in. She was on her back, which she would find strange if she thought about it given her tendency to sleep on her stomach or side, and to burrow beneath the covers. But she was on her back, the covers mostly kicked off, and she didn’t recognize her surroundings right away. Somebody’s bedroom, she gathered, and wondered exactly what she had gotten up to last night. Or rather, whom.

But she wasn’t naked. Hm.

Everything felt a bit drift-y and disconnected as she glanced around the room, drinking in the details while she tried to piece together what had happened through a foggy head. She forgot all of it, though, when she saw him. Hard to miss, she thought, as Chuck lay only inches away, to her right. He slept on his back on top of the covers, his work shirt unbuttoned over his undershirt, and still in his work pants. She could see his profile clearly. He didn’t look relaxed in sleep, but pensive, thoughtful, as if even in dreams his brain didn’t stop whirling.

That thought made her smile. Still half-asleep, she edged over, simply wanting to be closer to him. He didn’t wake when she put her head on his shoulder, but merely muttered in his sleep and instinctively moved closer to her. His left arm reached across her midsection, his palm cupping the base of her ribcage, and he tugged her up against his side, making her smile harder. She kissed his neck just below his ear since it was in easy reach.

Chuck’s jolt made her laugh, her lips still against his neck. Pleased with that reaction, she nuzzled closer. Chuck’s left hand flexed, patting once or twice like he wasn’t sure exactly what was going on.

He got the message quickly, though, when Sarah bit his earlobe. She liked that about him, his mental acuity. But she liked the fact that he started kissing her back even more. He immediately rolled onto his side, his leg going across both of hers. The hand draped over her body came up to cup the back of her neck. The kiss was as intense as it was dreamy, not frantic or rushed, but rather like Sarah could spend years like this, simply exploring the way Chuck’s lips moved against hers, the excited and anticipatory tingle in her belly, the chills racing over her skin. Her right hand tangled in his hair, enjoying the texture to the curls. She brought her left hand up to—

“Mother _fu_ —” Somebody plunged a knife into her shoulder. Agony turned her vision sparkling white at the edges, pain shooting from her ear to her fingertips so hard that the entire room shook. Sarah ended the curse on a gasp, her entire body convulsing in surprise.

Chuck practically fell off of the bed. “What? What is it? Oh god, your shoulder!”

Her shoulder indeed. It was on fire, like somebody had doused it in gasoline and had tossed a match. Sarah gritted her teeth as the joint began to throb, hard, wracking jolts that focused all of her concentration into that one tiny point. What the hell had happened that her shoulder felt like somebody had smashed it with a sledge hammer a few dozen times? Hissing between her teeth, she yanked her sleeve up. The joint had swelled to almost double its normal size.

What the hell had she done to—all at once, memory returned: the job gone wrong, the terrifying plummet from the building, swimming away blind and scared, the missing balance to her account, coming to find Chuck. Telling him everything. Falling asleep in the bed of Morgan Grimes.

“Sarah?” Chuck’s voice broke through her confusion and panic. It sounded like he’d said her name a few times. “Can you hear me? How’s your shoulder?”

“Don’t want to talk about it.” Sarah swiveled her head as best she could with her shoulder still a burning wreck of pain. “What time is it?”

Chuck blinked and dug for his cell phone. “Uh, after ten.”

Now it was Sarah’s turn to blink. “Why is it dark?”

“That’s ten p.m.,” Chuck informed her gently. “You’ve been asleep for nearly seventeen hours.”

“Seven—seventeen _hours_? Dammit!” Gritting her teeth again, Sarah threw the covers off with her good arm and started to scramble from the bed, but her shoulder simply hurt too much. She collapsed back to the side of the mattress, groaning. She had to get _moving_. “I never sleep that long!”

“To be fair, you kind of had an eventful evening.” Chuck climbed across the bed to sit next to her. “And everything’s fine, nobody suspects that you’re here. Nobody figured you would have come to me, apparently.”

“But…” Ten o’clock at night? She had lost nearly a full day? Sarah shook her head, mystified. “I should have been gone by now. Long gone. The longer I’m here, the more dangerous it is for you.”

“Face it, Sarah, if we get caught, I’m screwed anyway.” Chuck gave her a self-deprecating smile.

Sarah stared at him in horror. _Oh god, he’s right. I’m an idiot!_

“But right now, we’re OK. Don’t panic.” Chuck took a deep breath and licked his lips, which of course drew Sarah’s attention right to them. “I’ve got a plan.”

Sarah jerked her eyes back to meet Chuck’s. “What?”

“I figured some stuff out.” Excitement tinged the edges of Chuck’s smile, but that quickly turned into a sympathetic look. “Which can wait. I got some pain meds, and Awesome recommended an icepack, so I got one of the nice ones at the drug store. I’ll go get that and nuke dinner, and we can talk.”

“Talk?” Sarah shook her head, confused. None of this made any sense. She needed to be on the run, getting away from the police, putting as much space between her taillights and LA as possible.

“You’re going to want to hear what I have to say. Here.” Chuck bent over and picked something up off of the floor: a small overnight bag. “I raided my sister’s closet and got some stuff for you to wear. You’re a little taller than her, but you’ll probably feel a little more human with real clothes, so…” He set the bag between them.

All at once, Sarah felt the damning prickle of tears against her eyelids.

“Don’t do that,” Chuck said. “Please don’t do that, OK? I don’t mind helping you out because I think you genuinely do need some help, but…just don’t cry anymore. My nerves are still shot from last night and it’s really lame if you run away when the girl you’re trying to impress breaks down in tears. Or so I hear.”

With the pad of her thumb, Sarah brushed away the one tear that had managed to escape. “Chuck, being lame? Not really something you ever have to worry about.”

His smile was the slow one she loved, the one that spread over his face in stages, the one that always started at his eyes. “And you haven’t even heard the plan yet. Careful, Miss Walker, I’ll start to think you like me or something.”

“Yeah, because the wake-up a few minutes ago wasn’t a clue or anything.” Sarah rolled her eyes good-naturedly.

Ten minutes later, she had swallowed some crackers and the pain medication Chuck had set aside for her, and she had taken the overnight bag into the bathroom. It was hard to peel her shirt off with only one arm, hard enough that she almost opened the door and called for Chuck’s help. Two things stopped her: he had done enough for her, so it was probably best not to mortify him by asking him to remove clothing, and, more pressingly, if she couldn’t keep her hands off of him fully-clothed, she was under no illusions of how things might go if one of them started losing said clothing.

_It would probably cause an explosion._

Sarah flinched as she finally worked her bad arm out of the sleeve. An explosion for sure, with multiple casualties. Carnage. Probably a trail of the dead. She had no idea what it was about Chuck, but every time they drew near to each other, the laws of physics seemed to work in reverse.

It made her frown now as she turned on the shower water and wiggled out of the shorts. She wasn’t out to seduce him into helping her out. It felt…dirty, and it made her frown change to a scowl. Did he wonder if that was what she was doing? He hadn’t said anything, and he’d more than responded to her little wake-up call, but the thought had to be sitting in his head that she was just using him, which made her feel sick as she stepped under the shower spray.

“I don’t want to use you,” she announced when she had successfully sneaked back into Morgan’s bedroom.

Chuck didn’t even look up from the laptop on the desk. “That’s a pity,” he said.

“I mean it. I don’t want you to think that I’m trying to seduce you or whatever just to use you.”

“Oh, I know. You just can’t keep your hands to yourself. It’s not your fault, though. What can I say? The Bartowski charm, it just knocks the ladies over like dominoes.” Chuck swiveled in the chair and shot her a big grin. “Sometimes literally.”

She felt like stomping her foot, which made her feel even more churlish and petulant. So instead she gave him a pleading look. “Chuck, this isn’t a joke. You shouldn’t trust me. I could be conning you.”

He interlocked his fingers and put them behind his head, his feet crossed at the ankles. “Are you?”

“That’s not the point, it’s just that if I were—”

“Are you?” Chuck’s eyebrows went up. “It’s not a hard question. Yes or no.”

Sarah gave a disgusted sigh and sat on the edge of the bed. He’d made it up while she was in the shower, she saw, the tidy roots at work again. “No, I’m not.”

“Then we’re fine.” Chuck swiveled back to face the computer.

“You’re too trusting,” Sarah told him, sighing again.

“Pot or kettle?” Chuck wondered absently.

“What?”

“If I’m too trusting, so are you. After all, you just put your life in the hands of two almost strangers and then slept for over twelve hours.” Chuck tapped a few keys, nodded to himself, and turned back to face Sarah. “Look, you can beat yourself up all you want, but know I’m not going to help you out with that.” He pointed at a steaming dish on the corner of the desk. “I will, however, help you with the fact that your stomach’s growling.”

“It is not!” Sarah started to protest, and nearly blushed when her midsection gurgled. She rolled her eyes when Chuck grinned at the screen. “Smartass.”

“And proud of it.” Chuck started to get up to help her drag a chair over, but she waved him off. “How’s the shoulder?”

“Hurts.”

“Well, at least you can admit that. Eat and then I’ll give you the ice pack.”

She was famished. She told herself as she dug into the plate of chicken and rice pilaf that the only reasons she was letting Chuck boss her around in that mild-mannered way of his: because she was hungry, and the food was there. “I think I misjudged you,” she said after she swallowed a few mouthfuls.

Chuck didn’t look away from the computer screen. “How’s that?”

“I thought you were kind of a pushover, but you’re really not.”

“I’m just a nice guy. You said so yourself.”

“A nice guy who could get into a lot of trouble helping me,” Sarah said.

“A nice guy with a plan,” Chuck countered.

“Going to smuggle me out of the city in the Nerd Herder? Escape by Tylenol gel cap?”

“Nope.” Smug now, Chuck tapped a couple of keys and turned the laptop around so that she could see the screen. “Sarah Walker, meet Boston Techtronics.”

Rather than swallowing an overlarge mouthful of rice pilaf, Sarah talked around it. “We’ve met.” _And I’m probably going to have nightmares about jumping out of that window for years, if not forever._

“I don’t think you have.” Chuck tapped something on the keyboard and the very familiar offices of Boston Techtronics popped up on screen. She had seen the diagrams and some of these pictures before when she had been planning the heist part of Connor’s con, but she didn’t know where Chuck had gotten them. “They’re a defense contractor.”

Sarah’s head jerked back. “What?”

“You stole a painting from a defense contractor.”

“That makes no sense. What the hell is a defense contractor doing with a priceless painting?” Sarah hunkered forward to get a better look at the pictures on the laptop screen. Boston Techtronics looked like a normal, regular office, with computers everywhere. “They don’t typically have the money for that sort of thing.”

“Exactly. I’m thinking that you grabbed a fake painting.”

Sarah’s stomach sank. All at once, she wasn’t hungry. _Does the humiliation ever end? This is just pathetic._

Chuck gave her another sympathetic look, but she couldn’t bring herself to actually meet his gaze. “I think the guys that took your money and set you up to take the fall, I think they actually robbed Boston Techtronics, only they weren’t after a painting. They were after software.”

“How do you know that?”

Chuck picked up something on the desk and handed it to Sarah. “Went through your pockets before I washed your pants from last night, and I found this.”

She turned it over, puzzled. It was the small piece of plastic that she had found behind the painting. In the light of the desk lamp, she could see that it was thin, about as long as her thumb, and it had a frog’s head on one end.

It was an absurd thing to find behind a painting.

“What is it?” she asked. “I mean, I just grabbed it when I cut the painting out, but I don’t know why.”

Chuck reached over and pulled the frog’s head off. “Thumb drive.”

Wonderingly, Sarah stared at the metal USB prong at the end. _Why the hell didn’t I think of that_? She wasn’t completely computer incompetent.

“Even better yet, it’s a software key.” Chuck took the thumb drive back and plugged it into the computer. He pressed a key and lines of letters and numbers began flashing across the screen. “I think your ‘friends’ set you up, Sarah, so that they could steal whatever software Boston Techtronics was working on. But I think, and this is just me guessing, those guys can’t do anything with that software unless they have this key.”

He looked over at her now, beaming. “Which means,” he said, “we have a bargaining chip.”

  


* * *

  


“Chuck, no.”

“C’ _mon_ ,” Chuck said for the third time in less than the hour that he and Sarah had been arguing. “It’s the perfect way to clear your name so that you don’t have to spend the rest of your life running.”

“It’s insanely risky,” Sarah shot back. She had retreated to sitting on the bed, holding the icepack against her shoulder with a towel so that her hand wouldn’t fall off from the cold. “And I don’t want you taking that risk.”

“You came to me last night. I took the risk then.”

“And I will be forever grateful for that, but there’s a huge difference between helping me get out of town and sticking your neck out like this!” Sarah wanted to get up and pace, but it was hard to keep the icepack from slipping. She had to settle for glaring at Chuck, which she was starting to suspect did absolutely no good. _Pushover, my ass. Why the hell did I ever think he was one_? “Do you realize how crazy what you’re proposing is? I don’t think even experienced con artists could pull that off, and in case you haven’t noticed, we don’t exactly have any of those here!”

“We have you,” Chuck argued.

“Yeah, me. I’m the one that got played for a fool twice in the course of a single night.” Sarah made a buzzing noise in the back of her throat. “Try again.”

“It’s feasible.”

“That doesn’t mean it’s _smart_.” Sarah scowled. Even if she’d been asleep most of the day, she was tired, physically, emotionally, mentally. And being around Chuck wasn’t helping. “Chuck, this is incredibly, incredibly risky and if it falls through, we’ll both end up in prison. There’s absolutely no reason on the planet that you risk this much for me.”

Chuck’s face took a mulish set. “What if I want to?”

Sarah could only give him a baffled look. “Why?”

Before Chuck could reply to that, though, his cell phone rang. “Your sister again?” Sarah asked.

Chuck scowled at his phone. “Yeah. Let me just…” He tapped a few keys on his phone and shoved it in his pocket. “That should get her off my case for a little while, at least.”

Sarah doubted it. From the time Chuck had told her his plan, his phone had rang three or four times. Ellie Bartowski sounded like a determined woman.

“Where were we?” Chuck asked.

“You were telling me why you’re willing to risk going to prison and ruining your perfect record for me,” Sarah informed him, droll now.

He gave her a sarcastic grin in reply to that. “One, maybe it’s not always about you. Think about that. Your pals stole top secret software from a defense contractor, which means they’re going to sell it for a lot of money, and probably not to good guys, either. The information they have could maybe get a lot of innocent people killed, and I can’t stand for that.”

Sarah’s stomach sank again. She hadn’t even considered that aspect.

“And two, maybe it is about you,” Chuck went on, and Sarah’s head shot up in surprise to see him grinning at her. “I figure if this works and we clear your name, the very least you owe me is a second date.”

For a minute, Sarah wasn’t able to speak. She cleared her throat. “You realize that most guys usually just call and ask if they want a second date.”

“Yes, I realize that.” Chuck’s grin almost sparkled. “But this one will make for a hell of a second date.”

Sarah could feel herself giving in, swayed either by his logic or his smile, and she hated herself for it. But it was impossible not to feel hopeful with Chuck being optimistic and charming in his own nerdy way. Looking at that grin, the excitement that was evident in his posture alone, she couldn’t help but feel that maybe things wouldn’t suck for forever.

Still, one of them had to be practical here. “What you’re suggesting, we’ll need resources, start up capital, and you have to be very, very sure about what you’re getting into before you agree to anything. Seriously, Chuck, the wisest course would just be to let me run.”

“But then you’ll be running for a long time,” Chuck said. “We do this, and you promise me you’ll get out of the con game for good. You become just another working stiff like the rest of society. It doesn’t have to be here, but no more stealing from people after this.”

 _Just another working stiff_? She had never held an honest job in her life.

“That’s the only deal-breaker,” Chuck continued.

“I shouldn’t let you do this,” Sarah said.

“I’m a resourceful guy,” Chuck said. “I have more connections than you think, and you said you’ve got money in San Antonio, right? That can be whatever start up capital we need to pull this off. I’ll be the resources guy, you be the strategist, and together we can make this work.”

It was insanity. His outlined plan was part madness, part guy-who-read-too-many-comic-books. But looking in Chuck’s face now, seeing the absolute confidence he held in both her and his plan, Sarah felt herself give in to the crazy. _One hell of a second date, indeed. I am so screwed when it comes to this guy._

“OK,” she said.

“Really?” That slow smile started up again, this time fueled by surprise.

“For the record, I want to protest that we’re both crazy for even considering this,” Sarah said.

“Let the record show that we are indeed crazy. Shake on it?” Chuck offered his right hand. “I’m looking forward to doing business with you.”

Sarah looked at the proffered hand. This time, she didn’t ignore it and go in for the kiss, no matter how much she wanted to. She just set the icepack down and put her hand in his.

And that was, naturally, when Morgan opened the door to his own bedroom and strolled in. He stopped, took in Sarah and Chuck’s joined hands, and his face lit up with a smile. “Sweet!” he said, and plopped down to sit on the bed next to Sarah. “Does that mean you told her about the plan, Chuck? She’s in?”

Sarah looked from Morgan to Chuck. If her shoulder weren’t killing her, and Chuck weren’t holding onto her hand, she would have folded her arms across her chest and given him a deadpan stare.

Chuck was still perceptive enough to pick up on her displeasure. He winced and slowly drew his hand away. “Oh, right, I forgot to mention. Morgan knows about the plan. And we’ll probably have to tell my sister, too, since Awesome saw your picture on the news and put it together that you don’t work at the Buy More.”

Sarah gritted her teeth.

“Just think of us as your new crew,” Morgan offered, bouncing a little in his excitement.

Sarah just gave Chuck an unimpressed stare.

He shrank in the desk chair. “Well, I didn’t say it was a perfect plan,” he said.

Sarah rubbed her hand over her face. “We’re mad for even considering this,” she said again, and sighed. Even if they were all bound up to end up in prison for a thousand different crimes by the end of this, she couldn’t deny that it would be an…interesting journey.


	11. Sarah the Bad Influence

She had been right about one thing: Chuck’s sister was a very persistent woman.

Sarah sat on the edge of Chuck’s bed, still made because it hadn’t been slept in, not with Chuck keeping her company at Morgan’s. If she looked to her left, she could see the window she had come in through just a little over twenty-four hours before, and just twenty minutes before, when Chuck had smuggled her into his room before he went and dealt with his sister. Even though it was after midnight, Ellie Bartowski was still awake.

And she was apparently in a fighting mood.

Sarah could hear them because the bedroom door wasn’t closed, and they were out in that expanse of space in the apartment that was still a mystery to her. Did the rest of Chuck’s apartment look like this room, tidy-but-not-in-an-anal way? She was curious in a way she recognized as borderline unhealthy, but all at once, she wanted to know more about what made Chuck Bartowski tick, and what made him so different that she couldn’t seem to—didn’t want to—escape him.

Though she knew it was foolish because she might need to flee at any second, she kicked off her boots and set them neatly to the side. She put her heels on the edge of the bed and hugged her legs to her chest with her good arm, while the injured left arm hung at her side, lifeless. She hadn’t wanted the put it in the sling again, even if it would have alleviated some of the dulled throb. She didn’t like displaying such a huge sign of weakness.

“For god’s sake, Ellie, she’s not Dr. Claw!” Chuck’s voice cut through her reverie, the aggravated timbre of it at odds with how she normally pictured him. “It’s not like she’s got a mustache and she’s twirling it for the sake of simply being evil. She’s a woman in a sucky situation, and she needs help. And I want to help.”

Chuck had asked Sarah to stay into the room until he brought her out. Well, he had more ordered than asked. Sarah didn’t really follow orders well, anyway. She uncurled her arm from around her knees, put her feet on the floor, and rose. A couple of steps brought her to the doorway.

“If anything you’ve told me is true,” Chuck’s sister was saying as Sarah peered out into the hallway beyond, “then how the hell do you know she’s not conning you? You could go to _jail_ , Chuck!”

“I have a plan.”

_There, that’s the stubbornness I recognize. Good luck trying to talk him out of anything, Ellie._

“Do you know how much trouble you could get in for doing this?” Ellie Bartowski sounded slightly panicked. Sarah wandered down the hallway, pulling in details about the pleasant framed pictures of Awesome and a petite, brown-haired woman with the feminine version of Chuck’s facial structure. She was pretty, Sarah decided. “What reason do you have for even trusting this woman, Chuck?”

“I…” Chuck couldn’t seem to come up with a reason fast enough. “I just do, Ellie.”

Ellie was right, Sarah thought, venturing until she came to the mouth of the hallway. Chuck had no reason to trust her.

Ellie also wasn’t finished. “She could be playing you like a fiddle for everything you own!”

“She’s not.”

“How the hell do you know that? She lies and steals for a living!”

“She wanted to be done with it and she got betrayed.”

Sarah peered around the edge of the hallway into the rest of the apartment, where it looked like the kitchen, dining room, and living room were one communal area. _Nice_ , was her first thought. _Homey, but still stylish_.

Neither Chuck nor Ellie could see her since they were both sitting on the couch, their backs to her. Sarah could see one quarter of Ellie’s profile, and the shoulders left mostly bare by the sleep-tank, while Chuck still wore his Nerd Herd getup. She could only see the back of his head.

“She could just be telling you that!” Ellie argued. “You know absolutely nothing about this woman.”

“I know enough.”

Ellie threw her hands in the air. “Like what?”

“Like I believe her when she says she had enough and she doesn’t want to do this con thing anymore.” Chuck folded his arms over his chest.

“But that doesn’t prove to me that she’s not playing you!”

“She’s right, you know,” Sarah said, and both siblings jumped. “It’s foolish to trust me.”

Ellie wheeled around right away, her eyes bulging as she took in Sarah standing in the doorway. Her accusatory glare, however, wasn’t for Sarah, it was turned toward Chuck. “You brought her _here_?”

“I did.” Chuck’s chin went up. “I didn’t really think stashing her at Jeff and Lester’s was a good idea and I didn’t want Morgan’s mom to get suspicious.”

Ellie gave Chuck a look that indicated that her blood pressure was nowhere near safe levels.

“Look, Ellie, I’ve got a plan,” Chuck went on. “A plan that, should it work, won’t get any of us in trouble and will end with the bad guys in jail.”

“Chuck, this is not a video game. This is real life, OK? Things like what you’re doing have _consequences_.” Ellie pushed both hands through her hair and climbed to her feet. “I need wine,” she said, and stalked right past Sarah into the kitchen.

“I thought I told you to stay in the bedroom until it was safe to come out,” Chuck said, focusing on Sarah.

She shrugged her good shoulder. “I don’t listen well.”

“Obviously.”

“And she’s right, you know. You have no reason to trust me.”

“We’ve been over this. Just don’t talk for a minute.” Chuck took a deep breath and focused his attention back on his sister, who was rummaging through some sort of cabinet with the determination of the single-minded. “Ellie, look, the people that conned Sarah are bad people, and they got their hands on secrets that could get a lot of people hurt.”

Ellie slammed a bottle of wine onto the counter. Sarah blinked at the vehemence. “Then go to the police!”

“The police would never catch these guys,” Chuck said. “They’ll just get away with it.”

“That’s not our problem, Charles!” Ellie pulled out wineglasses and a corkscrew. Her hand was steady as she poured. “You and me, we’re average citizens with jobs and lives and things. We should not be involved in criminal capers. You shouldn’t have brought a fugitive into my home! Twice!”

Chuck suddenly looked miserable and half his age. “I know that, but…”

“ _But_?” Ellie glared.

“I have a plan,” Chuck said again, his chin firming. He straightened his shoulders and glared at his sister. “It’s a good one, and it’ll save people’s lives, but I’ll need help. And I need you to have my back with this, Ellie.”

Ellie’s glare seemed less sure now. Sarah watched, not daring to blink, as the siblings faced off, Chuck on one side of the breakfast bar and Ellie on the other with the wine. Time just seemed to stop, suspended in the balance, until Ellie sighed.

“You don’t know if you can trust her,” she said, as if Sarah weren’t even the room, and Sarah had to wonder if both siblings had forgotten her. “You barely know her.”

Chuck’s chin didn’t lower even a single degree. “I knew Bryce. I knew Jill.”

“Point taken,” Ellie sighed. Then, to Sarah’s surprise, she turned and held out one of the wineglasses in Sarah’s direction. “Hi. I’m Ellie, this idiot’s sister. Despite everything, it’s nice to meet you.”

“Um, hi.” Cautiously, Sarah moved forward and took the wine glass. She had to set it on the counter to shake Ellie’s hand. “Sarah. Sarah Walker.”

Ellie, though she might be willing to back her brother up, still narrowed her eyes suspiciously. “Is that your real name?”

 _Not remotely_. “No. But it’s how I introduced myself to Chuck, so it’s just easier to stick to it for now. It’s kind of a long story.”

Chuck looked a little surprised by that.

“When were you going to tell me you were hiding a fugitive in my home, Chuck?” Ellie asked, turning that slightly venomous stare back to Chuck.

He had the grace to wince. “I was building up to it before Eager McGee over here ruined the surprise by showing up early.”

“I really am grateful,” Sarah felt the need to say, though she had the absurd desire to shrink away from Ellie’s no-nonsense stare. Apparently it was a Bartowski trait to fill the room with personality. She wondered how they managed to live within five blocks of each other without causing daily havoc with their arguments, but had to reevaluate. Judging by the real distress on Chuck’s face, they didn’t actually argue much.

_But they’re arguing about me now. Oh god._

“I went to Chuck because I didn’t have anywhere else to go, but I didn’t mean to get him into any of this,” she continued. “And believe me, I’ve been trying to talk him out of it.”

“Yes, well, he’s incredibly stubborn when he wants to be.” Ellie sighed and downed a quarter of her wine in one gulp. She then surprised Sarah by pointing at one of the stools on the other side of the bar, next to Chuck. “You two might as well tell me your crazy plan while I get a look at that shoulder you’re trying not to favor.”

Automatically, Sarah angled her body so that the shoulder in question was as far away from Ellie as possible. “What?”

Ellie just rolled her eyes and set the wine down. “Sit, sit,” she said, herding Sarah toward the stool. “My idiot brother did tell you to ice it, right?”

Hearing him referred to as an idiot rankled, but Sarah figured if anybody had earned the right, it would be an older sister who was already disgruntled to begin with. Still, she cleared her throat, pointedly. “Yes, Chuck did.”

“Well, that’s good, at any rate. Start talking, Chuck.”

Chuck obediently took a seat at the other stool as he detailed the plan that he had told Sarah a couple of hours before, the plan they hadn’t actually had much of an opportunity to hash out between them yet. Hearing it now, listening to Chuck talk in generalizations, Sarah could see several steps of the plan that would need finessing and reworking. She made notes in her head as Chuck talked and Ellie tested the movement ability of her arm. It didn’t seem as impossible as it had a couple of hours before.

“So you’re going to convince this company to drop the charges against Sarah if you get them their data back?” Ellie asked. “How do you know you can?”

“We’ve got something they need,” Chuck said. “We’re going to use it to flush them out and when we do…”

“We’re going to steal it,” Sarah finished.

Ellie’s eyebrows shot sky-high. “It worries me that I know neither of you is kidding.” She focused on Sarah. “Did you put this joint back in yourself?”

“Yes. And it hurt like a bitch.” Sarah winced even remembering doing so, right after she had hidden the (likely false) painting and her robbery gear behind the abandoned house. “Kind of like it does now.”

“Without X-Rays I can’t say for sure,” Ellie said, unknowingly repeating her boyfriend’s advice from the night before, “but you need to keep it in a sling for at least a week or so, and let the soft tissue heal.”

“That’s what I said!” Chuck said. He gulped his wine when both women turned to glare at him.

“I’ve got an old sling in the closet that we still have from when Chuck broke his arm pretending to be Spider-Man,” Ellie said, and Sarah’s eyebrows went up. She turned to Chuck as his sister left the room to go find it.

He stared at something in his wineglass. “I may have put Velcro on my socks and a pair of my dad’s old gloves and tried to climb down off of the roof.”

“Smart.” _And adorable as all get out._

“I was seven,” Chuck muttered. “I learned my lesson.”

“Yeah?”

“Gravity sucks.”

Sarah reached over to squeeze his arm, but just as she did so, Ellie breezed back in, holding a bright green sling. “Thankfully, they were out of child-sized ones when Chuck broke his arm, so we adjusted this one at the time,” she said, not noticing that Chuck and Sarah hastily leaned away from each other. “You’ll just have to deal with this, unfortunately.”

She turned the sling for Sarah to see the artwork on the front.

“Ah yes,” Chuck said. “Kyle Monefil was quite the artist, as I recall. He painted that on my sling in art-class.”

“Pretty impressive for a second grader,” Ellie said, her lips twitching a bit as she helped Sarah put her aching arm into the sling.

“Is it a garbage can?” Sarah asked.

“No, it’s Batman.”

Sarah leaned over to get a good look at the sling. “I don’t see it,” she said after a minute. Chuck grinned.

Ellie sighed, drawing the subject back to the matter at hand. “You two are going to go through with this crazy plan whether or not I approve,” she said, and she almost made it sound like a question.

“Yes,” Chuck said before Sarah could point out that Chuck seemed hell-bent on going through with his plan whether or not even Sarah approved. “But if you help, our chances of getting caught go significantly down.”

Ellie sighed. “I figured you were going to say that. All right, what can I do?”

“Can we borrow your car?”

This was clearly the last thing Ellie expected. “What?”

“I can’t take the Herder out of state,” Chuck said, “and we need to go to San Antonio.”

Ellie’s eyes bulged. “You want to borrow my car and drive to San Antonio?”

“Yes.”

“What the _hell_ is in San Antonio?”

“About twenty-five thousand dollars,” Sarah said, and both Chuck and Ellie went still. “It’s my emergency stash,” she explained when they turned to stare at her as one. “I mean, it’s not much, but it’s enough to fund this con and keep Chuck out of trouble.”

Ellie poured herself another cup of wine and took a long, steady drink. “You’ve got twenty-five thousand dollars just sitting in San Antonio?”

Sarah would have shrugged, but Ellie’s ministrations to her shoulder meant that it was already stiff and sore enough. “Yeah,” she said, and feeling a bit sassy, added, “don’t you?”

OK, bad joke. When both siblings continued to stare, she tried to shrink down in the stool. “Tough crowd,” she said weakly.

Chuck cleared his throat and turned back to his sister, putting his hand over the wine bottle before she could pour herself a third glass. “Time’s of the essence, Ellie. I’m calling in sick at the Buy More on Monday, and I’ve got tomorrow off, so we’re going to drive straight there and straight back. We’ll pay for the oil change and everything, we’ll be back Monday, and I won’t let your car out of my sight, I promise. But we have to hurry if we want this plan to work.”

“What time are you leaving?” Ellie asked, sighing.

  


* * *

  


“I can kip on the couch,” Sarah said for the fifth time.

Also for the fifth time, Chuck ignored her. “Nope, you get the bed. It won’t be comfortable at all with your arm the way it is.”

“Seriously, I slept all day, I don’t actually need to sleep, whereas you must be exhausted.”

Chuck glanced over as he adjusted the last sheet over the couch cushions. “You’re swaying on your feet,” he said. “And you need to get some real sleep tonight, as we’ve got a full forty-two hours of driving ahead of us, and that’s assuming we make good time.”

Sarah scowled. “I hate that I’m kicking you out of your own bed.”

“I volunteered,” Chuck reminded her.

Ellie had laid down the law for Sarah staying at Casa Bartowski. Her brother’s dating and sex life was none of her business, unless, and she had given Sarah a pointed look, a participant in said sex life might be out to rob him of his life savings and let him take the fall for her and go to prison. Sarah, in an effort to prove that she wasn’t out to do any of that, had promptly offered to sleep on the couch. Now, twenty minutes later, Ellie was sleeping off the wine she’d imbibed and Chuck, not Sarah, was prepping the couch to sleep on.

“It was my idea,” Sarah said.

“And then I stole it from you,” Chuck said. “Look, Sarah, I’d come off like a total tool if I let you sleep on the couch. Call it old fashioned or sexist or whatever you want, but I’m taking the couch and you’re getting the bed.”

Sarah studied him for a minute. “You’re cranky,” she said.

Chuck looked affronted. “I am not!”

Laughing, Sarah angled her body so that she could wrap her good arm around his torso and move in close. She didn’t know why, she simply knew she wanted to hug him, and breathe in his scent. “Somebody needs a nap,” she told him, and kissed the side of his jaw.

The beginnings of a scowl quickly changed to a delighted smile. “Oh, I do, do I?” he asked, bringing an arm around her in return. He backed up until he was sitting on the half-made-up couch, pulling her with him so that she was sitting on his lap. It was a gutsy move for the same guy that had automatically blushed every time he’d accidentally glanced down her rather revealing neckline during her confession to him the night before, and Sarah smiled as he kissed her. And then, of course, she kissed him back with greater fervency, her good hand cupped at the back of his neck, her thumb playing with the curls there.

Chuck’s hands stayed on her hips, his thumbs toying with the hem of her shirt. “Why does this happen to us every time?” he asked between kisses.

“Don’t know, don’t care.” Sarah changed the angle of the kiss, opening her lips in invitation and hoping Chuck would get the message. He did, gloriously so.

“We could always share the couch,” Sarah suggested a couple of humming minutes later, as Chuck’s lips trailed fire from her neck to her collarbone. “I’m very flexible, I promise.”

Chuck groaned. “Isn’t that defeating the purpose of the promise we made to Ellie?”

Sarah lifted her head to grin wickedly down at him. “Ellie’s sleeping off three glasses of wine she drank alarmingly quickly.”

One of Chuck’s eyebrows went up. “Are you saying we should take advantage of my sister’s inebriated state?”

“Aren’t you?” Sarah asked, and pulled him back in for a long, slow, exploring kiss that shimmered with heat at the edges.

“You’re a bad influence,” Chuck managed to groan.

“And you’re talking too much.”

Unfortunately, the word promise slipped past her defenses and past that amazing thing Chuck was doing with his tongue and past the way he just felt so good against her. Hadn’t she just been freaking out about this? Whatever this crazy thing with Chuck was, it wasn’t spurned by gratitude, and it sure as hell wasn’t her trying to use him. But to any outsider, with her plastered all over Chuck on his own couch, her shirt mostly unbuttoned thanks to Chuck’s quick fingers, Chuck’s hair a mess, it certainly came across as decidedly ulterior.

So, squeezing her eyes shut and kicking herself every step of the way, she broke the kiss and leaned back.

“What? What is it?” Chuck looked up at her, his eyes heavy-lidded, his lips swollen. “Is something wrong?”

With more than a little regret, Sarah climbed off of his lap, which wasn’t the easiest thing to do with only one arm for balance. “You’re right,” she said. “We did make a promise to Ellie.”

It took Chuck a second to comprehend what she meant, and then he beat the back of his head against the couch, groaning yet again. This time, though, there wasn’t anything sexual about the noise. “I shouldn’t have said anything,” he said, rubbing his hands over his face.

“Probably not, but…” Sarah let her words trail off as she made a helpless gesture. “A promise is a promise.”

“Tease,” Chuck grumbled, but he surprised her by smiling. “Like I’m going to be able to sleep now.”

“I’d kiss you good-night,” Sarah told him, smiling back, “but I think we both know what would happen.”

“Yeah, because that makes it better.” Chuck heaved a sigh. “See you in a few hours?”

“See you in a few hours,” Sarah echoed. “Good night, Chuck.”

“Night.”

She waited until she was once again in the dubious safety of his bedroom, and alone, before she let out a groan of her own and dropped down to sit on the bed. _I need a cold shower_. What was it about Chuck that a single look from him turned everything inside of her to the willing and the wanton? It was going to be a long drive to San Antonio.


	12. Sarah’s First Test

“You’d think there would be more antique stores out here in the middle of nowhere,” Chuck said, frowning as he peered along the mostly-empty sides of the highway, searching in vain.

Sarah smiled smugly and leaned back against the seat.

“I mean, what else do they have to do out here besides collect and sell old stuff?” Chuck paused as they passed yet another billboard for a fireworks stand coming up in three miles. “And blow stuff up.”

“R,” Sarah said. “S.”

“Gah! I need a Q!” Chuck pouted. “You’ve beaten me at this game three times.”

“And yet you continue to persist,” Sarah said. Seeing a sign for a gas station also coming up in three miles, she grinned. “T.”

Chuck groaned.

Sarah wasn’t much for road trips. If she was traveling, she preferred to get it over with, usually by way of first class. Being in the car for extended periods of time made her flash back to her childhood, while her father moved them between jobs. She’d always sat in the backseat, sometimes playing with her toys, or rearranging the stacks of money that her father had managed to lift out of the latest bank truck, or sleeping.

A road trip with Chuck was nothing like that. For one, his chivalrous nature aside, he had no problem letting her do half of the driving, so that helped break up the monotony. They had been in the car seventeen hours by now, and by all rights, she should have been feeling tired or antsy or just bored. But between a couple of naps, the road trip mix that Chuck had put together with his laptop and his iPod during the first leg of the trip, a few games, and the magazines they had picked on a break in Arizona, she wasn’t having too terrible of a time.

Especially since she was winning, yet again.

“U,” she said, spotting the letter on a sign for a hotel in the next town.

Chuck searched in vain for a Q and grumbled. “I give up,” he said.

Sarah tilted her sunglasses down and smiled at him. “Quitter.”

“Darn straight. This is me, falling on my sword.” And Chuck mimed stabbing a fake sword into his own gut.

Sarah grinned and pushed on his shoulder. “I notice you only fall on your sword when I’m about to win.”

“Go figure.” Chuck’s gaze led her to a sign for a mom and pop style restaurant that seemed awfully proud of its pies. That was the other thing about road tripping with Chuck, Sarah had learned early on. They didn’t stop at normal places to eat. They had stopped for lunch at a pizzeria between Phoenix and Tucson that had advertised its table-sized pizzas. If a group of four or less could eat one in less than twenty-four minutes, the pizza was free.

They hadn’t tried the Excalibur, but Chuck had gotten such a kick out of cheering on a group of college-aged friends that had done so that Sarah had joined in with the chanting and clapping.

“You hungry?” Chuck asked now.

Sarah didn’t point that he had some sort of psychological drive to feed her. Instead, she shrugged. “I could eat.”

“Awesome.” Chuck pulled the car off of the Interstate.

  


* * *

  


“So you really have twenty-five thousand dollars…sitting in San Antonio?” Chuck asked as he finished off Sarah’s blueberry pie for her. “Like, in some place really mysterious or something?”

“Not really mysterious,” Sarah said, watching him go. The man, she was discovering, could be a bottomless pit when tucking food away. Not a single clue existed as to where the food actually went, since he was as lanky as the day was long. “It’s buried.”

Chuck swallowed a bite of pie. “Seriously?”

“Yeah. No paper trail.”

“How do you know where it is?”

“It’s a little hard to forget.”

“And it’s not possible that Connor and his people have found it?”

 _Oh god, I hope not_. “No,” Sarah said with conviction she didn’t feel. She hadn’t written down the location of her emergency stash, and it was impossible to find on its own, plus she had covered her tracks when originally laying in the supply. But Connor had Scopes working for him, and they had managed to find her emergency stash in the bank, so who knew how much of her had been compromised to them?

It made her feel a little sick if she thought about it too much.

“I’m sure they haven’t found it. Ready to go?” Chuck asked after he had laid a tip on the table. The first stop of the day had been at an ATM, where Chuck had withdrawn some cash for their trip so that they didn’t leave too much of a trail that Scopes could pick up on later. The deal was that Chuck would pay for them to get San Antonio, Sarah would pay him back, and for the trip home. Chuck had tried to insist that repayment wasn’t necessary, but Sarah was adamant. Money was on the one thing that made sense right now, so she would stick by that.

She rose and followed Chuck out of the restaurant, smiling as their waitress waved a farewell. “My turn to drive?”

Chuck tossed over the keys, climbed into the passenger seat, and promptly shut his eyes, possibly going into a food coma.

  


* * *

  


She was supposed to wake him after a couple of hours and let him drive, but as Chuck, who she knew hadn’t slept well the night before, slept on in the passenger seat, Sarah let him. Therefore, she was still behind the wheel as they drove into San Antonio at just after two in the morning, and Chuck wasn’t woken until she pulled up to her stash site, even though the streetlamps in San Antonio kept flashing over his sleep-slackened face, giving her just a glimpse of his profile, the angle of his cheek, the dip in his chin, the way curls fell over his forehead and onto the seat behind him, with every streetlight that swept over the car as Sarah drove along.

He stirred when she stopped the car, but she didn’t wake him. Instead, she went to the trunk and pulled out the short shovel she’d found in the utility closet at his apartment, the one she hadn’t mentioned to either Bartowski sibling she was going to borrow, and went to find her money. It wasn’t easy to control the shovel with just one arm, but thankfully, it had a handle on the end. It took a lot of creativity, a lot of misses, and some cursing, but she managed.

Her money was there.

Sarah’s heart gave one hard jerk when the shovel hit paydirt—literally—and her bones nearly melted as the tension and worry holding her together vanished. Her money was there. Connor and his jackass crew hadn’t managed to take _everything_.

Her movements mechanical, Sarah unearthed the rest of the bag. She’d found it at a curio shop years before, a bowling ball bag with no bowling ball. Now, it was stashed full of hundreds, twenties, and fifties that would add up to a little more than twenty five thousand dollars. She cleared enough of the dirt from around it and reached down to yank it out by the straps. The ground had a surprising amount of give. There was barely a need to tug hard.

She set the bag on the sand/dirt mixture and stared at it. There was relief, yes. Relief that she had this little piece of security, but there was also something sinister attached.

She could take the money, and walk away. Leave Chuck sleeping and vanish into the darkness. With this money, she could get away, get to Europe, join some old friends, get back into her old life. She wouldn’t be putting people like Ellie and Chuck and Morgan and Awesome in danger. Sure, they would be angry with her, but they would also be safe. Sarah was under no illusions about herself. She was a woman who came with strings attached, and right now those strings were attached to a hangman’s noose. She should run far and fast to keep that noose from tightening around the throat of a man who would hatch a dangerous plan to keep her safe, who would hide her at his best friend’s house, and back her up to his sister even though he barely knew her.

Who would drive straight from Los Angeles to San Antonio simply because he had faith in both her and his plan, who had faith because he trusted her enough to lead them right.

Jack Burton’s words whispered back to Sarah across the years and distance. _Trust your crew-leader. If you’re the crew-leader, look out for your crew._

Chuck was her crew now.

Sarah picked up the bag and set it off to the side. Her movements were once again mechanical as she set to refilling the hole and destroying all evidence that she had been here behind this abandoned diner outside of San Antonio. When that was done, she collected the bag of money and the shovel and, juggling them awkwardly with her good arm the whole time, set both in the trunk of Ellie’s car.

Chuck was sitting up in the passenger seat when she climbed into the car. She froze. How long had he been awake? Had he seen her staring at the money in the headlights, debating to take it and rabbit? Or had he just woken?

She didn’t dare ask.

Chuck looked at her. “I’m glad you came back,” he said.

So he’d seen her. Sarah nearly flushed from the shame, but Chuck didn’t seem particularly upset. Even so, she had no idea what she could say to him. She faced the steering wheel and didn’t look at him, until she felt his hand on her shoulder.

Somehow, he had moved so that he was close, not quite kneeling on his seat but near enough. It had to be awkward, but he didn’t complain. He gave her a questioning look, his face inches from hers.

Almost every single one of their kisses had been initiated by her, so for Chuck to seek her permission was ridiculous, and yet somehow sweet. Sarah gave him an uncertain smile, and he closed the distance between them.

This time, it wasn’t an explosion, there was no frantic race to go faster or speed up or even hurry at all. She could taste a little bit of blueberry pie in the kiss, but the kiss itself was far sweeter than that, slower and somehow richer. She put her good hand on the side of his neck, her touch feather-light at first, her fingers curling against the warmth Chuck seemed to radiate like a human torch. Her eyes drifted closed.

It was Chuck that broke the kiss either a second or a century later. He leaned his forehead against hers, and Sarah slowly opened her eyes to see his eyes smiling back at her.

“I’m glad I came back, too,” Sarah said before she could stop herself.

Chuck’s grin broadened. He put his hand on the back of her neck, but only to kiss her forehead. “My turn to drive,” he said.

  


* * *

  


Weariness made the world move out of time as Sarah dragged herself out of the passenger seat of Ellie’s car, but she dutifully turned and started to collect the remains of the day’s travels, the fast food cups and empty water bottles, stuffing them into one of the plastic bags. She was stiff and creaky, and her entire body wanted to weep and never see the interior of a car again. She’d stopped knowing how to talk nearly an hour before, and could only be grateful that Chuck had decided to drive the final leg of the trip.

On the other side of the car, Chuck pocketed the keys and headed back to collect the bowling bag from the trunk. “Don’t do that,” he said, coming around to join Sarah by the passenger side. “I’ll do that in the morning. C’mon, you’re exhausted, and your arm is killing you. Let’s go get some real sleep. Horizontal sleep.”

Sarah didn’t protest, though her arm wasn’t really killing her. It was merely throbbing, more than uncomfortably. Two days in a car with a healing shoulder, constantly banging it against the seat, just meant that everything felt stiff and achy. And unless she missed her guess, Ellie or Awesome would want to check it out in the morning, which would probably only make the pain worse.

She let Chuck pull her away from the car, though. They were sneaking back into Chuck’s apartment in the dead of night, having driven straight through from San Antonio. If the trip out there had been fun and interesting, the trip back had simply been long. Sarah had gone silent halfway through because she didn’t want to snap at Chuck, and she suspected he had done the same. Now, though, he reached for her hand as they shuffled more than walked into the courtyard and back to his apartment. Chuck set the bowling ball bag down to open his window and gestured for her to go inside first.

Had it really only been less than four days ago she’d stood at this window and unloaded on an almost stranger? Sarah climbed into the room and immediately wanted to sprawl across the bed.

“I’ll get you some pajamas,” Chuck said, closing the window behind them. They had to move quietly to avoid waking Ellie and Awesome in the room next door, and Chuck turned around while she changed and insisted she do the same, but it only took a few minutes before Sarah was sitting on the edge of Chuck’s bed in a too-big pair of his sweatpants and one of his T-shirts, watching him plug in various electronic devices whose batteries had drained on the trip.

“Are you sleeping on the couch again?” she asked, yawning and stretching her good arm.

Chuck shot a guilty look in the direction of Ellie’s bedroom. “I should.”

“You’re not going to get any sleep on the couch. It’s not long enough for you,” Sarah pointed out. “The bed’s big, and if you’re worried about your propriety, you can build a wall of pillows in the middle.”

Chuck rubbed his hands over his face. She could tell he was tempted.

“Besides,” she went on, her voice cracking from the exhaustion as she glanced at his bedside clock, “what with everything we have to get done tomorrow, it’s not like we’d have time for anything but a little fooling around.”

Even in the dark, she could see the flush spread. And it made her smile tiredly. “All right,” Chuck said, heaving a sigh. “Just let me go leave a note on the counter for Ellie.”

Sarah nodded and set the bedside alarm before she crawled beneath the covers. She nurtured just a brief flicker of resentment at the pain in her arm since it meant she wouldn’t be able to sleep on her stomach for a little while, but tuned it out. The mattress under her and the sheets simply felt _divine_ after two days in the car, her body finally relaxing. She drifted in twilight sleep until she heard the bedroom door open and close. There was a moment’s hesitation before the mattress shifted, and then Sarah smiled as Chuck kissed her forehead just like he had the night before. “Good night, Sarah.”

“‘Night,” she murmured drowsily, and fell asleep. She had her money, Chuck had a plan, she had a crew, and everything was going to be OK. Maybe.


	13. Sarah the Racketeer

The insistent beep-buzz-beep of an alarm clock going off broke through the muddled half-dream Sarah didn’t understand and wouldn’t remember later, save that she hadn’t understood it at the time. Her shoulder immediately started complaining, but that wasn’t the most uncomfortable thing that struck her.

Her entire right side was tingling, and not that fun, anticipatory, kiss-me-more tingle. Her arm and shoulder had fallen asleep, which probably had everything to do with the fact that both were lodged under Chuck Bartowski’s side. He was sleeping on his stomach, pulled in as near to her as he could be, and he had snaked one possessive arm around her middle, sandwiching her right arm between their bodies. His weight pressed into her, both intensely heavy and overly warm. She felt like she was on the inside of a furnace, even though at some point during their sleep—nap, really—she’d kicked off all of the blankets.

Chuck mumbled something into her shoulder. It sounded like, “Dun-wanna-wake-up-now-sleep-more-kay,” but she couldn’t be sure.

“Chuck,” Sarah said. Chuck, at the sound of his name, pulled her even closer.

She would have tried for a repeat of what had happened in Morgan’s bed before their trip to San Antonio, but Chuck’s weight pinned her to the mattress, rendering her immobile. Also, the memory of the onion rings she had been talked into sharing with him the night before was not nearly distant enough for comfort. Her eyes were gritty with the lack of sleep, and the alarm was still going off. Sarah tried to ease of Chuck’s grip, but after so much time resting, lactic acid buildup in her shoulder made her wince. _OK, not ready to move that yet._

She gave serious thought to calling for help.

Instead, though, she braced herself, reached across with her bad arm, and gently flicked the end of Chuck’s nose. He jumped, muttered again, and slowly his eyes blinked open and met hers. She was rewarded with a sleepy look that was part confusion, part contentment, and a smile began to spread before the alarm clock noise apparently broke through his sphere of consciousness.

But Chuck didn’t immediately roll over to turn it off. Instead, his look turned puzzled, trailing from her hair (which had to be a mess), down her face, tracing the line of her shoulder to her hip, to her knees, all visible because she had kicked off the blankets, and clad in his clothes. It was like he couldn’t figure out why she would possibly be doing there.

“Um, help,” Sarah said, since he wasn’t in any hurry to move. She looked down at her side, which was still buried under Chuck’s weight.

“Oh, crap,” Chuck said, and rolled off of her. Cool air rushed against her skin in his absence, and she nearly took a deep breath of relief. Chuck turned over and killed the buzzing noise before he faced her again. “I am so, so sorry about that. Did I crush you?”

“No, it’s fine. Just…warm.” Sarah decided she would wait until Chuck wasn’t looking to shake off the tingling feeling of the limbs that had fallen asleep. “Very warm.”

“Ah, yeah.” Chuck looked embarrassed. “I wish I had something clever to say here that doesn’t make me look like I was just treating you like a human-sized teddy bear, but—wait a second, why was the alarm going off? I didn’t set that.”

“I did.” Wincing only a little, Sarah kicked off of the rest of the blankets and put her feet on the floor. She hitched the borrowed sweatpants up before she stood. Chuck was pretty lean, but they still sagged on her. “Lots to do today. You work at eleven, right?”

“Yes,” Chuck said warily.

“Then we’d best get to it. You want to shower first or should I?”

Chuck yawned so widely that Sarah was surprised his jaw didn’t crack. “You go first. I’m gonna talk to Ellie and get everything squared away with her car.”

He hadn’t even asked what the plan for the day was, Sarah thought as she stripped out of the borrowed clothes and stepped into the shower. That was either faith or foolishness, which perfectly defined this strange relationship she and Chuck had found themselves in. One moment, it felt like they were moving too fast, the next it felt too slow, and the next, it felt like they hadn’t moved at all. There had been a lot of real conversation on the road trip to San Antonio, discussions of favorite movies, worldviews, Batman versus Superman. The last, Sarah hadn’t put much stock in, but Chuck claimed that the choice defined one’s philosophy about life.

In the shower, testing, she rotated her left arm a little bit, hoping only to clear the buildup. Spending two days in the car hadn’t been the greatest thing for her shoulder, but she could feel it healing, so that was a relief. She figured she could probably ditch the sling soon, provided she talked the Bartowskis out of being overprotective. A woman with a sling drew too much attention, and she needed to move freely over the next couple of days, securing what they would require for the plan.

She finished showering and dressed in yet more Ellie clothing. _I have got to get my own clothes today_. She looked a bit like a waitress, since the outfit was a simple button-up shirt and black trousers, but she could wear her own boots without it looking too suspicious.

Arm back in its sling, she went to go make a quick breakfast for the two of them while Chuck showered. She paused a little when she found Ellie already in the kitchen, holding a coffee mug like a lifeline and still wearing her bathrobe. She cracked one eye open to peer blearily at Sarah.

“Worked a double yesterday,” she said when Sarah gave her a questioning look. “Need coffee. Talking hard.”

“Er, OK,” Sarah said. “I was going to make some breakfast. Want an omelet or something?”

Ellie made a noise that Sarah took for either assent or ursine communication, so Sarah shrugged her good shoulder and gathered the breakfast materials she would need. It was a little awkward with only the one hand, but thanks to the fact that she’d broken her arm as a child, she knew how to crack eggs one-handed. Before long, she had an assembly line going, so that when Chuck wandered in, his hair dripping from the shower and a cell phone plastered to his ear, he found her making two omelets in one pan and scrambled eggs in the next.

“Morgan wants to know what the dress code is for this morning’s, ah, jaunt,” he told Sarah, holding his hand over the phone.

“Khakis or dress slacks, button-up shirt if he has it. He needs to look nice,” Sarah said, and Chuck turned to relay that information to Morgan.

“Wait, you’re spending the morning with Chuck and Morgan?” Ellie asked. She looked like the coffee was starting to take its toll.

“Yep. I’ve got to get them ready for the meeting I’m going to set up with Boston Techtronics tomorrow.” Sarah added the sandwich meat ham she had shredded to the scrambled eggs. “We’re going clothes shopping. They need some swanky business attire.”

“You can put a nerd in a business suit,” Chuck said, coming back in with his phone in his hand, “but you can’t really ever hide the fact that he’s a nerd.”

“Give me twenty minutes and a good tailor and I bet I can prove you wrong.” Sarah tried to maneuver the spatula one-handed to flip the omelet side over, but Chuck nudged her easily to the side. “I can get it.”

“Yes, but I can get it faster. Why don’t you have a seat? I’ll pour you some coffee and finish up here.”

“Typical,” Ellie said, but she was smiling. “He comes in after most of the work is done.”

Chuck grinned over at his sister as Sarah reluctantly took up residence on the stool beside Ellie. “It’s like I planned it or something. Who gets what?”

“Omelets for us, scrambled eggs for you.”

“Excellent.” Chuck set the dishes in front of the other two and topped off coffees, automatically pushing the sugar jar over to Sarah. Both women stared at him. He paused, the coffee pot still in hand. “What? What is it?”

“He knows how you take your coffee!” Ellie seemed inordinately excited about that fact, given that it was before nine o’clock in the morning. “Aww! He’s smitten!”

Immediately, Chuck looked nonplussed. “I am not! I’m being a good host!”

“He’s smitten,” Ellie told Sarah, and focused on her omelet with a single-mindedness that told Sarah that the caffeine had some work left to do. Sarah hid a smile behind the coffee mug. Because Chuck seemed to be turning red, she set the mug down and reached across the island to squeeze his wrist. He smiled sheepishly at her before she picked up her fork and began to eat.

“Where’s Devon?” Chuck asked, craning his neck to look around as if Captain Awesome had somehow managed to hide.

“Early shift.” Ellie rolled her eyes. “I’m up because I promised to bring him food.”

“Must be love,” Chuck said, forking up more scrambled eggs.

“Must be,” Ellie agreed.

“Do you think you could do one thing for us before you take Awes—Devon that food?”

Though Ellie’s eyes narrowed at the almost nickname slip, she shrugged. “Sure, what?”

“Can you call and set up an appointment for us?”

Sarah straightened up so fast that her shoulder gave a twinge of pain. “Wait a second,” she said. “I thought we agreed that I would be doing that.”

“What if somebody from Boston Techtronics recognizes your voice?” Chuck scooped up another forkful of eggs and shoveled it back.

“It’s highly doubtful that—”

“You worked in the same building as them for a couple of weeks, somebody might have heard you on the elevator and recognize your voice,” Chuck pointed out.

“The chances of that are very slim.” Sarah glared. “I don’t want to ask Ellie to get involved in this—”

“More than she already is?” Chuck raised a sarcastic eyebrow, his gaze sweeping over the dining room and the fugitive currently sitting in the middle of said room.

Sarah glowered. She was really tired of Chuck playing that card, as every time did so, a fresh layer of guilt swept in.

Ellie seemed to pick up on the tension. “I don’t mind helping out with whatever it is,” she said, looking from Chuck to Sarah uncertainly. “Just how illegal will it be?”

“It’s one phone call,” Chuck said.

“It’s conspiracy,” Sarah said at the same time, picking up her coffee and giving Chuck a displeased look. “And it’s pointless when I can make the call just as well as anybody else.”

“Too bad it’s not racketeering,” Chuck mused, ignoring Sarah. “I’ve always wanted to be accused of racketeering. It makes me think of pirates. Or tennis.”

“Chuck,” Ellie said. “Focus.” She turned to Sarah and there was an apologetic look on her face. “He gets this way when he hasn’t had enough sleep. The filter just vanishes. But I can make the call, whatever you need.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. I’ve never participated in a con before. It could be exciting.”

It wasn’t, actually. All Ellie needed to do was call Boston Techtronics, ask for a gentleman named Hugh, and request an appointment for the following afternoon as a representative for… “Rand Securities?” Sarah asked, looking down at the piece of paper Chuck had handed her. “That’s the name of the company?”

“Been reading _Wheel of Time_ again, I see,” Ellie observed, looking at the paper.

“Morgan picked it. I vetoed Arrakian, Siddhartha, and Tyrell Corporation,” Chuck said. “I hope Rand’s acceptable, since Morgan’s already built the website and created the graphics.”

“Rand is fine,” Sarah said, since every single one of those references had gone over her head. She looked over at Ellie. “Are you ready to do this?”

“Yes.” Ellie took a deep breath. When Sarah glanced over at Chuck, he pulled out the burn phone they had stopped the previous afternoon to purchase and handed it over. She dialed the number for Boston Techtronics from memory and passed the phone to Ellie.

“Deep breaths. This is a routine call for you, remember.” Sarah smiled encouragingly. “And remember, when she offers a time—”

“Counter with another offer. I’ve got it.” Ellie took another deep breath before she pressed the “Talk” button. “It’s ringing. It’s—oh.” She was silent for a few seconds. “Yes, hi, this is Natalie Gellar with Rand Securities. I would like to speak to Hugh Cartwright if he’s available. Certainly, I’ll hold.”

“You’re doing great, sis,” Chuck said, leaning his elbows on the counter. Ellie gave him a tight-lipped smile. “It’s like you were born for a life of crime.”

Ellie punched his shoulder, but not with much force. She held up one a finger, however, when Chuck opened his mouth to protest. “Yes, hello, Mr. Cartwright? My name is Natalie Gellar, I’m with Rand Securities. I’m calling today because a couple of my associates would appreciate the opportunity to meet with you. Would you happen to be available for a meeting tomorrow afternoon? What is it pertaining to?”

Ellie didn’t even pause to take a deep breath here. _She’s a doctor, she’s got to be amazing under pressure_ , Sarah reminded herself as the other woman said, “I believe that Boston Techtronics recently misplaced something of considerable value, and my associates have a vested interest in seeing the misplaced items returned. Two o’clock? No, I’m sorry, that won’t work. I can say that they will be available at two thirty. Yes, it will be William Cahil and Theodore Marks. I’m sure they’ll be happy to make your acquaintance. I’ll call tomorrow to confirm the appointment. Have a nice day, Mr. Cartwright.”

She clicked “End,” and her hand immediately began to shake. “How’d I do?” she asked.

Sarah let out a low whistle. “You missed out on a serious life calling as an actress,” she said.

“Well, I _was_ the March Hare in my fourth grade class production of _Alice in Wonderland_ ,” Ellie said, but she was beaming a little bit.

“High-five,” Chuck decided, holding his hand up. Ellie grinned and slapped his palm. Chuck turned to Sarah. “So now what?”

“Now we go get Morgan and turn you into William Cahill and Theodore Marks.”

  


* * *

  


Chuck’s prediction had come true. _You can put a nerd in a business suit, but you really can’t hide the fact that he’s a nerd_ , Sarah thought, trying to keep her lips from twitching at the corners and giving away her amusement. She had learned very early on in the morning that laughing at Morgan’s antics only encouraged him, and in this stately atmosphere inside the upscale men’s clothing store she’d picked for the first stop, it was probably not wise to let Morgan loose. For a guy who had spent twenty minutes arguing over some minor point in _Star Wars with Chuck on the drive over, Morgan certainly knew quite a bit about brands and designers. And he had proceeded to talk the salesman’s ear off for nearly twenty minutes now. His current topic was a prolonged debate about the merits of a double-breasted suit jacket versus the classier three-button deal the salesman kept attempting to steer him toward._

Since the damage was already done and the first impressions already made, Sarah let Morgan go. She trailed after the shorter man and the harried salesperson, providing absolutely no help to the latter even though he kept casting desperate looks over his shoulder. She had helped Chuck pick out a suit already and he was in the dressing room, trying that on with the tie she had picked out for him.

However, when the salesman, who really did look like he was a nice gentleman most of the time, shot yet another desperate look at her, Sarah cleared her throat. “Why not try both?” she asked Morgan. “We can see which looks better and make an executive decision later on.”

“You think?” Morgan swiveled his head to look at her.

“Always better to have options,” Sarah pointed out. She wished she had a geek reference to pull out of her cap, since that always seemed to be the thing that won arguments with Morgan, but she wasn’t going to start watching movies with space battles and aliens to understand what Chuck’s shorter friend was talking about.

Morgan chewed his lip while he thought it over. “Very true,” he decided, and looked at the salesman. “Lead on, my good man!”

The salesman shot one grateful look over his shoulder at Sarah as he was dragged away by Morgan.

That left Sarah free to slip into the dressing rooms area of the store, which was mostly empty for this early in the morning. She felt twitchy being this much out in the open, but she highly doubted that the cops would be looking for Stacee Kemp in an upscale men’s warehouse. The dressing rooms were relatively near the suits department, large, fancy stalls that were separated by partitions that didn’t quite reach the ceiling or floor.

“Hey, you in here?” Sarah called, walking down the line.

“Second stall from the end,” came the reply.

“You decent?”

“Yep.”

“Darn,” Sarah said, smiling as she pushed the door open, intending only to peek her head around. What she saw, however, made her stop dead in her tracks.

_Oh my god. I’m going to start drooling._

Chuck half-turned. He always looked nice in his work uniform, and he did great things to the T-shirts and under-shirts she had seen him wear, but looking at him now in the dress shirt that perfectly matched the tie, and the suit trousers, a dark spear of pure lust that was both embarrassing and puzzling in its intensity shot through her. The shirt was just the right shade against his dusky skin, the lines falling just right to accentuate his lean build without calling attention to his gawkiness.

_I take it back. You can put a nerd in a business suit and he looks pretty damned hot._

“How’s it look?” Chuck asked, clearly unable to read minds.

It took Sarah a second to find her voice, and it came out a little bit rusty. “Um, great. It looks really, really great.”

“Yeah?” Chuck turned back to the mirror uncertainly, adjusting the Windsor knot in his tie. “I don’t know. It feels weird that my tie and my shirt are the same color and—why are you staring?”

“I’m not staring,” Sarah said, looking up quickly before he could realize she had been admiring the fit of his trousers against his butt.

Chuck gave her a strange look. “Were you just—were you checking out my ass?”

“I—no.”

“Really? Cos…” Chuck wiggled said object a little bit. “I mean, it’s OK if you were. I happen to have a fine ass and—mmpfgh.” The rest of his statement was lost to Sarah’s lips as she grabbed his tie with her good hand and yanked him to her.

There was nothing sweet about this kiss, like there had been in San Antonio. Incredibly hot, maybe, a tad wild. Sarah bit Chuck’s lower lip, not deep enough to leave a mark but hard enough to let him know she meant business. He apparently shared the sentiment, since he braced one hand against the wall over her shoulder and took his time exploring her mouth with his tongue, his free hand finding her hip and pulling her a little closer even while his fingers played a pattern across the skin under her shirt. Immediately, goose bumps raced up Sarah’s arms all the way up to the back of her neck. She let go of his tie to splay her hand over his chest, almost as if she were going to push him away, but instead she angled her head a bit, turning the kiss deeper, darker, and far more erotic than the dressing room in a men’s clothing store called for.

Chuck didn’t seem to mind in the slightest. The touch on her hip changed to a grip; his other hand slid down the wall to cup the back of her neck, and he stepped in.

They jolted when they heard Morgan call Chuck’s name. “Chuck-man, where are you?”

Before Chuck could answer, Morgan found them on his own, for he strolled right in, two different suit options over his shoulder. He froze when he saw the other two. “Uh…”

“Hi, Morgan,” Sarah said and bit her lips, not looking at either of her companions.

“‘Sup,” Morgan said. He squinted at the pair of them. “Just out of curiosity, how do you two ever get anything done? Seriously, you’re like rabbits.”

“Morgan,” Chuck said in a strained voice. He had yet to move back from Sarah, so his hand was still tangled in her hair, and he was still facing away from Morgan. When Sarah looked down, she realized why. “What are you doing in here?”

“Need your opinion. Got a couple of options here, and I want to know. This one or—”

“Yes,” Sarah and Chuck said together.

Morgan immediately pouted. “You didn’t even see the other one!”

“It’s bright green,” Chuck said. “Sorry, buddy, I know it’s your dream to modify that with question marks and become the Riddler, but tomorrow’s a serious venture. Gonna go with the gray one this time.”

“You think?” Morgan looked disappointed as he held it up.

“It’s very suave,” Sarah said, slipping away from Chuck since she probably wasn’t helping him with his problem right then. “I think you’ll look dashing.”

It took Morgan a minute, but he eventually conceded the point. “I’m going to go try it on and see if it needs any alterations. You two carry on.”

“Ten-four,” Chuck said, rubbing his hand over his face, and Morgan strode out again. Chuck gave Sarah a long look and let out a gusty sigh. “We have really got to work on our timing,” he muttered, too quietly for Morgan to hear in the next stall.

Sarah shook her head. “Oh, trust me. I know.” In a normal voice, she asked, “How does the jacket fit you?”

Chuck picked it up off of the hook and pulled it on, taking his time buttoning it and then straightening the sleeves and plucking at the cuffs. “Seems to fit pretty well,” he said, bouncing on the balls of his feet a little to test the suit. “What do you think?”

The jacket, which was charcoal, added just a touch of width to Chuck’s shoulders. It also made all traces of nerd vanish, and Sarah felt something akin to sorrow at that thought. “I think it looks great,” she said and reached up to smoothe the shoulders out for him.

  


* * *

  


It had ended up being a full morning. After picking up the suits, they swung by the printer to pick up a few dozen Rand Securities business cards, and Sarah dragged Chuck and Morgan through a market place that she knew sold realistic-looking knock-offs to buy wristwatches for them. She had wanted to go buy them the actual thing, but Chuck had pointed out that if they could find a close enough match, it would hardly matter, and it would save them money that Sarah might need if the plan went wrong the next day. She’d blown through enough capital picking up nice suits for them.

The thought that the plan could go wrong sat in the Nerd Herder like a fourth passenger. It had sat at the back of Sarah’s mind all through San Antonio, but now it carried extra implications. If the plan went wrong, she would have to run far and fast, and away from Chuck. Not only did that make the hot threat of tears prickle the back of Sarah’s throat, but it sent a knife-blade of fear through her ribcage to even think of how much danger that left Chuck and his friends and family in.

The plan needed to not go wrong.

Chuck had dropped her off behind his apartment with his key to get inside before he and Morgan headed off to work. Sarah hadn’t even made it inside before she’d spotted Ellie coming from the other direction. Asking the other woman for directions to the nearest thrift shop in walking distance had somehow turned into a very educational shopping trip. It had been a little awkward at first, as Sarah could tell Ellie didn’t fully trust her, but it must be ingrained into the Bartowski genes to not only adopt strays but to befriend them as well. Ellie, it turned out, was as fascinated with the different cons Sarah had pulled as Chuck had been on the trip to San Antonio.

“So how did you get into this?” she asked through the door as Sarah tried on a pair of jeans that had looked promising.

The jeans were a little baggy around the hips. Wrinkling her nose, Sarah peeled out of them. “Get into what?”

“What you do.”

“Oh. Um, I don’t remember doing anything else. My dad was a…grifter.”

“Seriously?”

“Yeah.” Sarah picked up a second pair of jeans and wiggled into them. “It didn’t exactly lead to things like a normal childhood, since we moved around a lot.” _A thousand motels, a new city and a new name, sometimes leaving under the cover of darkness_. A half-forgotten memory struck her. “I was an Ella once. For about two weeks.”

“Really?”

“Yep. Ella O’Reilly.” Sarah thought about it as she checked the fit of the jeans. “That was in Michigan, I think. Maybe Missouri. One of those M states.”

There was a silence on the other side of the door. “I can’t even imagine growing up like that.”

The jeans weren’t the ideal fit, but they looked good enough for everyday wear. Sarah stripped and tossed them onto the to-buy pile. “I can’t imagine growing up like a normal person.”

“Neither can I,” Ellie muttered and Sarah frowned to herself. “Sarah, if you hurt my brother, well…please don’t? He’s had enough happen to him in his life.”

Sarah’s hands stilled as she reached for the last pair of pants. She was suddenly grateful a thousand times over that she was on one side of a wall, no matter how flimsy, and Ellie was on the other. “He told me about what happened to him at Stanford,” she said, her voice hesitant. “With his best friend and his girlfriend and the stolen tests.”

“Yes. And I’ll never forgive a single one of them for what they did to him.” Ellie sounded like she might be brushing away a tear; nausea and doubt boiled in Sarah’s midsection. “This is the first time I’ve seen him care about anything besides video games in five years. And I don’t…I don’t want it to end badly.”

Neither did she, Sarah thought over an hour later, as she hauled herself up onto the loading dock behind the Buy More. Even though it was the middle of the afternoon, the place was a ghost town, which made no sense to Sarah. How did the Buy More stay in business if they didn’t actually get any work done?

Maybe they were all on a break, though Sarah doubted it. Ellie had told her that the back room would be abandoned, and a fine place to hide out while she waited for Chuck to finish his shift. Now Sarah wandered through boxes of inventory in the warehouse-like room. Shamefully, her first reaction was that of a thief’s: it would be terribly easy to walk off with a few thousand dollars in merchandise. Especially since, and she checked now, there appeared to be green polo shirts dangling from three of the room’s four cameras.

 _It’s almost like they’re purposely trying to lure thieves in. Either that, or the nerds threw a wild party back here recently_. The thought made her laugh.

She wandered deeper into the stronghold of the electronics superstore. There appeared to be a refrigerator along one wall, and a few computers set up for employee use opposite a large, fenced-in cage. It was inside this cage that she found her first sign of life, and to her luck, it was the very two men she was seeking.

Chuck and Morgan were either dancing, or one was trying to stop the other from freaking out. Sarah figured it was the latter, since Morgan immediately threw his hands in the air and started ranting, stepping away from Chuck. The other man dropped his hands from Morgan’s shoulders and tucked them back into his own pockets. The words became clear as Sarah neared them.

“…Can’t do this, Chuck! I’m not an actor! You remember the last time I tried to act. You remember how bad it went. You were there for the opening night fiasco. Remember?”

“Morgan, we were eight, and you dumped a bowl of punch on Brenda Meier’s hair on a dare. Of course it ended badly. It had nothing to do with your portrayal of an apple, which I thought was inspired.” Chuck waved his hands in front of him, soothingly, but Morgan didn’t stop pacing. “Granted,” the taller nerd went on, “maybe the _Hamlet_ speech was a bit much for an eight-year-old.”

“It was still a fiasco!” Morgan pushed his hands through his hair and let out an almighty groan. He was about two seconds from falling to his knees and berating the heavens, Sarah thought, hiding her smile as she approached. “A _fiasco_ , Chuck! And tomorrow, it’s not going to be the PTA accusing me, it’s going to be real, live big guys. With _guns_! Guns! I’m not Cobra! I’m allergic to bullets, and height challenged besides, and the only thing I have going for me sometimes is my prized and extensive collection of comic books and, oh yeah, the fact that I have a heartbeat!”

Even though she couldn’t see his face, Sarah thought Chuck appeared a bit frazzled. His shirt was untucked, which meant he was either on a break or was working away from the customers. He pushed his hands through his hair in a fair imitation of his shorter friend. “Morgan, Morgan, they’re not going to have guns, all right? It’s going to be okay.”

“But I can’t act!”

“You’ll be fine,” Sarah said, stepping inside the cage and leaning her back against the metal doorjamb. “The men tomorrow won’t be scary at all.”

“Sarah!” Morgan seemed inordinately happy to see her. “You’re here! Oh, god, it’s going to be okay!” And he immediately burrowed in for a hug.

Sarah gave Chuck a startled look over his friend’s head. He shrugged back, looking relieved, amused, and exasperated. “Uh, there, there?” Sarah asked, since the Nerd Herder wasn’t any help whatsoever. Uncertainly, she patted Morgan’s shoulder. Finally, the green-shirt released her and stepped back, a flush high on his cheeks. Sarah had to fight back a grin. “You’re going to be fine tomorrow, I promise. Chuck’ll have your back, and you trust Chuck, right?”

“But I can’t act!”

“I don’t know about that,” Sarah said, still fighting a smile since she could see Chuck doing the same. “You seem like a master thespian to me.”

Silence fell. Morgan’s face went through a myriad of expressions: confusion, puzzlement, shock, hurt, and finally awkwardness. “Um, Sarah, I know Morgan’s a girl’s name, and I like girls but I—”

“She said _thespian_ ,” Chuck stressed from behind his friend. “It means actor.”

“Oh!” Morgan’s face cleared. “OK, then. You really think so?”

“I do,” Sarah said with as much solemnity as she could manage. She had to physically bite down on the corners of her lips to keep the smile from spreading. “What’s happening, you two? You’re not worried about tomorrow, are you?”

“A little bit,” Chuck said, speaking up before Morgan could begin a diatribe to rival any fine melodramatic actor. “William Shatner over here is freaking out about possible curveballs that Boston Techtronics could throw at us, and while he’s being a bit...over the top—sorry, man, it’s true—he does bring up some worrying points.”

“We’ll go over every contingency,” Sarah promised. “You two will be as cool as cucumbers tomorrow for the meeting, I promise.”

Chuck didn’t look quite reassured as he paced the cage a bit, idly kicking a dusty computer carapace with the toe of one of his chucks. “We really would feel better if there were some way you could come with us on this part, which, yes, I know it’s impossible, but you’re the experienced one here.”

“I know.” Sarah moved away from Morgan and the doorjamb to lay a comforting hand on his arm. She should have expected the nerves to show up at this point in the plan, she realized. Chuck had been excited about his idea, but it was a completely different thing to experience the plans in motion. Putting on the suit earlier had probably cemented it for him that they were going to try to actually con somebody. She should have taken him aside then and talked him down instead of jumping on top of him, fueled by the insane lust he seemed to inspire in overwhelming waves. “But we’re going to go over everything so well tonight that it’ll be just like I’m in the room with you.”

She smiled at him, and after an uncertain minute, Chuck smiled back. “Promise?”

“I promise.”

“Exactly like you’ll be in the room with us?” Morgan asked. “The delicious scent of peaches and everything?”

Sarah half-turned, a frown on her face. “I smell like peaches?” she asked, looking at Chuck.

He looked a bit uncomfortable. “Ellie’s shampoo smells like peaches. It’s his favorite smell,” he said under his breath. Seeing Sarah’s look, he added, “We’ll stop at a Rite-Aid or something and get you a different shampoo on the way home.”

“Thank you,” Sarah said, meaning it.

“There is a way,” a new voice said, and all three in the cage whipped around to see that they were no longer alone, “for her to actually be in the room with you tomorrow, you know. Not wanting to eavesdrop, Charles, Morgan, but we couldn’t help but overhear your dilemma.”

Standing in the doorway were two men in Nerd Herd attire, one as small and fidgety as the other was greasy and drunk. They smirked and leered at Sarah in turns, and she thought they seemed a bit familiar. The smaller, darker one spoke.

“And, of course, we’d be happy to help.”

Morgan and Chuck exchanged a look that made Sarah nervous, but it wasn’t until Morgan spoke that she realized there could be real trouble.

The green-shirt looked at the three Nerd Herders and the thief gathered around him, and said, “I’ve got a bad feeling about this.”


	14. Sarah the Valkyrie

The black van should have stood out like a sore thumb along the side of the road, bracketed as it was by upper-class sedans and SUVs and given that it was a dinosaur compared to everything else on this street. But for some reason, it didn’t. If Sarah hadn’t known to look for it, she would have gone jogging right by it without a second thought. Of course, her last con job of all time had been against _her_ , so maybe her judgment was no longer the best about these things.

She made a block to scope out anybody that might be watching the van, but saw nobody. With a tiny shrug to herself, she finished up her jog, and found Ellie Bartowski and Devon Woodcomb waiting for her outside the van, trying so hard to look inconspicuous that they were the ones that stood out like sore thumbs, instead of the creepy black van behind them.

Ellie lifted a hand to wave as Sarah approached, but that expression quickly turned to one of displeasure. _Wave of Bartowski Disapproval, part one_ , Sarah thought. Even Devon looked like she was doing something wrong, which she was.

“You’re supposed to keep that arm immobilized!” Ellie said as soon as Sarah had jogged up to them. “Do you realize what kind of damage you’re doing to the soft tissue?”

“Sling made me sweat too much,” Sarah said, which was partly the truth. Mostly, however, she hadn’t wanted to draw any kind of memorable attention. People might not remember a hot blonde jogging down the street in LA, but they would definitely remember if she had a sling with a trash-can/Batman painted across the front of it. As it was, she’d had to steal one of Chuck’s old T-shirts to run in, when she normally would have gone for just a sports bra and workout shorts. There was just a touch of bruising around her injury. “I’ll put it back on as soon as this is over.”

Devon raised his eyebrows. “Doing permanent damage to your shoulder would not be awesome.”

“Sorry, Devon.”

Sarah was saved from further lecturing by the sound of the van door sliding open. They were greeted by a smell Sarah would rather never have to describe ever again, and the thin, darker half of the Jeff and Lester partnership, or as Morgan had called it during their overlong planning session the night before, the Coalition of Creepy. Lester Patel tipped his sunglasses down on his nose to look at the three of them. He had dressed for the “mission,” as the group had taken to calling it, in what Sarah suspected was his best. A gray suit, a white button-up unbuttoned at the neck, a bright red pocket square. His hair was slicked back. He looked a bit like a lounge singer from the 80s.

“Welcome,” he said with what he probably felt was proper theatricality, “to the van. Come in, come in.”

Sarah traded a look with Ellie and Devon. The former, upon finding out exactly what the plan was, had staunchly refused to let Sarah go this part alone, and the latter, perhaps knowing more about Jeff and Lester than either the ladies did, had likewise refused to leave either of them alone in the “Stalker Van.” So now, Sarah thought, there would be five people in a black van in the middle of August in Los Angeles.

It was a good thing she was already sweating from her jog. She had a head-start on everybody else. Still, she was grateful as she ignored Lester’s hand to help her into the van, especially once she got a look around it. She would not have liked to be in there alone with the Coalition of Creepy.

As she climbed in, she took note of her surroundings, and had to fight a shudder. There was an actual blow-up sofa in the van, bright pink with a purple leopard-spotted throw tossed over it. Surveillance equipment lined the walls and back doors (and completely blocking an escape route, Sarah noted), monitors and parabolic microphones and other things Sarah couldn’t quite identify and wasn’t sure she wanted to. The floor was grimy, and everything seemed to have a film over it that she deliberately told herself not to think about, or risk premature madness. The other half of the Coalition of Creepy was sitting on the aforementioned blow-up sofa, smiling a bit drowsily with a can that said Duff in his hand.

He gave her what was probably supposed to be a “come hither” smile. Sarah swallowed hard to avoid throwing up in her mouth.

“Right this way,” Lester, who was either supposed to be the emcee or a waiter, said. He gestured at three rickety folding chairs gathered around a few monitors. “We’ve hooked Charles and Morgan up to the equipment already and they should be pulling in any second. If you’ll sit here, Eleanor, and Sarah, you here…”

Sarah tried not to think about what else might have sat in this chair over the years. _This really is the strangest con I have ever pulled_ , she thought. It almost took her back to the grassroots of pulling con jobs, when it had just been her and her father. Except this time the mark wasn’t a bank truck in some backwater town in the middle of the Midwest. They were trying to fool government contractors from the back of a stalker van with a couple of guys that pulled an hourly wage at an electronics superstore. And why was that? So that Sarah could go on a second date with Chuck Bartowski?

_One hell of a second date, indeed._

Next to her, Lester reached up and smacked the side of his fist against a monitor. It fuzzed and flickered to life. “That’s Charles and Morgan now,” he narrated for Sarah and Ellie’s benefit, as Devon warily took a seat in the passenger side of the van. He pointed at a moving blip on the screen.

Sarah blinked at the monitor. “You bugged their car?”

“Certainly. I had to know when they would be coming, didn’t I?”

“You couldn’t have just called them?” Sarah asked.

Lester looked affronted. “This is a confidence game, madam. It looks unprofessional and sneaky for them to be receiving calls from here on out.”

“Or it makes them look like legitimate businessmen,” Ellie put in drolly.

“They should be in range and we’ll be able to communicate with them in three…two…one…”

Surely enough, speakers crackled on either side of the monitors. Sarah couldn’t decide if she was more impressed or disturbed by the fact that the monitoring equipment in the Stalker Van worked so well. She decided not to think about it, especially since Morgan’s voice came over the speakers, perfectly clear.

“…Don’t get it, man. I don’t understand.”

“Morgan—”

“She’s an honest to god con-woman. She is like Deborah Kerr in _To Catch a Thief_ , only in the body of a Valkyrie, with endless legs. She is Kate Austen. She is a grossly attractive Robert Redford in female form. And don’t get me wrong. I think you’re swell, Chuck, the bee’s knees, really, but what the hell does a woman like that see in a computer repair tech?”

“It could be that I think he’s a sexy beast,” Sarah put in, and Morgan immediately went silent. She looked past the shell-shocked Lester and mouthed ‘Sorry!’ at Ellie. The other woman shrugged.

“He is a sexy beast,” put in a voice behind Sarah, and Lester immediately put his palm to his forehead. Sarah, meanwhile, turned around in time to see Jeff smile boozily and finish off his beer. He then, of course, crushed the empty can against his forehead.

She turned back around very quickly.

“Ah, thanks for that, Jeff,” Chuck said through the speakers. “Sarah, I’m very, very sorry about that and Morgan is, too—”

“Please don’t kill me!”

“But he of course meant no disrespect. If you like, I can stuff him in the trunk for a couple of hours after this. I can find a new best friend. They’re on sale at Large Mart today, I think.”

Chuck was talking quickly, something he did when nervous, and just the babbling tone made Sarah want to grin. Since the others were watching, though, she only allowed a small smile. “It’s perfectly fine, Chuck, Morgan. I’m glad you think my legs are endless. But maybe let’s focus on the con. Audio seems to be working.”

“Apparently,” Chuck said just dryly enough to make Ellie and Devon laugh. “Are you getting anything on the video feed?”

Lester pointed at the two screens in question. One showed video of what looked like the passenger side of a car inside a car garage. The other showed some sort of grey field, though there were a couple of streaks of light through it.

“One of them,” Sarah said, frowning. “The other looks all grey.”

“Oh, right, my bad.” The feed jerked and jumped, and the grey fell away to reveal Chuck’s torso and face for a second before he apparently turned the camera-glasses and put them on. The five in the van watched, wincing, as he then had to swerve the car a little to avoid clipping a concrete post. “Whoops.”

“Yeah, maybe focus on driving,” Ellie said, and in the car, Chuck laughed a bit nervously.

Sarah took a deep breath as Chuck pulled the SUV they had rented for the day into the parking spot in the garage. They had had a pre-meeting to set everything up, but now was where the plan kicked into motion. Chuck and Morgan were wearing their earpieces that Sarah could barely see even when she was looking for them, microphones hidden expertly in the knots of their ties. And spy-cams in their glasses, which Morgan, Chuck, and Devon had all geeked out about. It was like they were running a covert operation for the government instead of a con.

 _Of course, nothing about this con is normal_. Sarah looked around at her team in the van, Jeff with his second or third can of booze, Lester who was nervously fidgeting with dials that she had to hope weren’t important, Awesome who was eying Jeff nervously, Ellie who had her arms crossed over her chest, either out of nerves or a desire to touch as little as possible in the van. Morgan’s camera glasses swung over and gave her a profile shot of Chuck’s face. A few seconds later, Chuck’s camera glasses did the same thing for Morgan’s.

This was her crew. Time to do this.

“OK, Chuck, Morgan, you remember the distress phrase?” she asked.

“Call Natalie Gellar Nat if we think something is going wrong,” Morgan said.

“And what word from me means cut your losses and head for the stairs?”

On screen, she saw Chuck and Morgan trade uncertain looks. “Uh, Sarah,” Chuck said, sounding a bit apologetic, “it’s bad luck to say it aloud.”

Her father always kissed a St. Nicholas medal before every con, Sarah reminded herself. So uttering the name of a fruit aloud could be a legitimate superstition. Still, she swapped eye-rolls with Ellie who, having more experience with this crew than she did, looked vaguely amused. “I’m just going to trust that you know the word, then,” she said.

“Tally-ho,” Morgan said.

“Are you two ready?” Sarah asked.

There was a pause. “I was born ready,” Morgan said for both of them.

“I was born premature,” Jeff piped up from the back of the van, and promptly fell sideways onto the couch. Drool immediately formed at the corner of his mouth.

Sarah cleared her throat in the ensuing silence. “I’m going to ask Lester to cut the mic in here so that you don’t have us talking in your ear the whole time. Just remember what we talked about and remember, you’re naturals. You’re going to be great. Good luck.”

“Thanks, Sarah.” And as Lester muted the van mic, Chuck and Morgan climbed out of the car, their briefcases in hand. It was actually a bit dizzying to watch them walk, the spy-cams embedded in their glasses bobbing as each of the men took a step. Still, Sarah felt a spurt of something she hadn’t realized she would miss: the thrill of a con fully kicking off. She was careful not to let any of it show on her face, but amid the worry for Chuck, the terror that she was leading a group of good people astray, and the general self-doubt she’d suffered since she had been played, there was a sense of anticipation like a live wire in her stomach.

She sensed that Chuck and Morgan’s steps slowed a bit as they approached the elevators that would take them out of the parking garage, but by the time they approached the Petersen Building, the two men had regained their stride. They were making small talk that sounded rather forced to Sarah, but since nobody else could actually hear them, she didn’t say anything.

“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” Lester asked suddenly, breaking Sarah out of her concentration. He was staring at monitors, the audio feed and the two video monitors, with something akin to awe. He was almost giddy. “We’re like superheroes, fighting crime and using all of our badass spy skills to save…well, you. I must say, you’re a lot taller than most damsels in distress.”

Out of Lester’s line of sight, Sarah’s fist tightened a bit. She refrained from making the threat that if he continued to talk about her, she wouldn’t be the one in distress, and turned back to face the monitors without acknowledging him.

“It’s all real,” Lester went on, the words barely audible. “We’re now conmen. Oh, man, if my Rabbi could see me now, well, actually, he’d probably start quoting the Torah at me, but I like to think a part of him would be proud of me.”

On the monitors, Chuck and Morgan had entered the front door of the Petersen building. They were showing the IDs Sarah had forged for them to the security guard on duty. Morgan sounded a bit nervous. Chuck, to absolutely no surprise of Sarah, was babbling just a tad, but he seemed to be holding his own.

“And my Uncle Samil, he’d be proud, too. Even if he swore nothing good would ever come from anything my father had ever done, including me. This would show him, I think.” Lester shook his head in disgust. “You know what he gave me for my thirteenth birthday? A home pregnancy test. Though, granted, he may have been confusing me for my cousin Beatrice at that point, which isn’t entirely fair as she’s two inches taller than me, but do you know how humiliating it is to a thirteen-year-old guy to get a home pregnancy test in front of his entire Bar Mitzvah?”

Chuck and Morgan climbed into the elevators.

“I don’t even look like Beatrice,” Lester said, as Devon eyed the unconscious Jeff nervously.

“Leave him, honey, if you wake him, we’ll just have to deal with him,” Ellie said.

“But the Hippocratic oath—”

Jeff snorted in his sleep.

“See? He’s fine.”

“Are we even sure Charles and Morgan can do this?” Lester wondered, making Sarah grateful, for the thirteenth time, that she had cut the audio from the van to Chuck and Morgan’s earpieces. “I mean, don’t get me wrong—”

“They can.”

“But—”

“Lester,” Sarah said in a tone of voice that had made one of her marks nearly wet his pants. When the tiny Nerd Herder looked at her fearfully, she made sure to meet his eye. “They can. Now shut up, I want to hear them.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Lester quickly shut up. On his other side, Ellie raised her eyebrows at Sarah, but the blonde woman didn’t acknowledge the look. She focused her attention on the screen. Chuck and Morgan had arrived at the Boston Techtronics offices, which looked exactly the same as Sarah remembered from the digital images Scopes had pulled from the video cameras during the first con.

“It looks pleasant enough,” Devon observed from the front seat.

Ellie nodded sagely. “They say taupe is very soothing.”

Sarah had to fight a grin.

On screen, Morgan and Chuck were brought into the very same room Sarah had fled nearly a week before. Seeing the windows—which looked like they had been replaced—made her stomach clench, but she just took a deep breath. The camera on Chuck’s glasses seemed to linger on the windows as well, but before Sarah could activate the mic and say something, he focused his attention back on Morgan, who was craning his neck to peer around the room.

“Nice digs,” he commented. “Do you think the office assistant was hitting on me? She was kind of flirting, don’t you think?”

“Definitely,” Chuck assured his best friend. To Sarah, he sounded only a little amused, which Sarah had to give him credit for. “Maybe you can get her digits on the way out, _Theodore_.”

“Oh. Right. That could be problematic.” On screen, Morgan frowned.

 _You’re not kidding_ , Sarah thought.

When the door to the conference room opened, all four conscious people in the van jumped, as did Morgan, even though Hugh Cartwright was not particularly fearsome looking. Sarah had seen him on the elevator a few times in the Petersen Building, and he had struck her then as he did now: a man in his mid-forties with a middle-of-the-line suit and a balding spot on top. In the van, however, she couldn’t smell the cloud of Drakkar Noir that had followed him around.

She wasn’t sure if she was relieved or not. The Stalker Van was a bit ripe. And it was also getting very, very warm.

“Mr. Cartwright, we appreciate your taking the time to meet with us today,” Chuck, who was taking point on the meeting. The glasses-cam bobbled a little, and Sarah assumed the men were shaking hands. “My associate, Theodore Marks.”

“Pleasure to meet you, sir,” Morgan said, his glasses-cam bobbling just like Chuck’s had.

“Well, yes, I have to admit your call yesterday made me quite curious. Can I offer you anything to drink?”

Chuck and Morgan declined the offer, and Hugh Cartwright settled down opposite them with a genial air. Sarah’s eyes narrowed. Without knowing why, she held up a hand for silence in the van and toggled on the van microphone.

On screen, Cartwright cleared his throat. “Lovely day outside, isn’t it?”

Chuck assured him that the weather was beautiful, and that the drive over had been quite pleasant. He still sounded nervous, but Sarah didn’t suspect anybody but her team would realize that. Still, she kept her eyes narrowed.

“Wonderful,” Hugh Cartwright said. He folded his hands on top of one another on the tabletop and regarded Chuck and Morgan frankly. “I’ll get right to the heart of the matter. Tell me why I shouldn’t just have you arrested right now, Mr. Cahill, Mr. Marks.” He made a point of lazily checking his watch as Sarah saw Morgan’s monitor jump significantly. “You have thirty seconds.”

 _Holy hell_.


	15. Sarah the Runner

Sarah stabbed her hand the other at the conscious members in the van, effectively silencing them with one jerky motion. Even Lester paled a little.

“Chuck, Morgan, listen to me. He is _bluffing_ , OK? He is bluffing, you have done nothing incriminating that he would know about. This is just a test, got it?” She infused as much steely command in her voice as she could. If she thought about it, she would have been terrified at Hugh Cartwright’s words, but fear was a luxury she couldn’t afford right now. “Morgan, take a deep breath. Chuck, stay calm. Tell him that that would be completely short-sighted. Just stick to the script.”

She saw the two video feeds jump as Morgan and Chuck swapped looks. For one humming second that stretched out into an eternity, she wasn’t sure her words had been enough.

And then she heard Chuck laugh.

It was a forced laugh, to be sure, but only those in the van and with him would know it, she was positive. But there was just enough of a cocky touch to the noise—a touch that sent a shiver down her traitorously female spine—to disguise any nerves. It appeared that William Cahill could be arrogant when he needed to be, and damn if it wasn’t sexy. “That would be awfully short-sighted of you, don’t you think, Mr. Cartwright? You don’t even know what we’re here for.”

Mr. Cartwright’s face, oddly distorted by the quality of the cameras in Chuck and Morgan’s glasses, scowled. “I know exactly why you’re here and if you’re in any way involved with Stacee Kemp—”

“We don’t know anybody by that name, Mr. Cartwright. We’re merely here to offer our services.”

“My company isn’t interested,” Cartwright said right away.

“That’s a bit premature,” Chuck said, and Sarah hoped the shakiness at the edges of his voice was only obvious to her. She kept her right hand up, extended toward Ellie, Lester, and Awesome, telling them to remain silent. “Mr. Marks and I are in a unique position to offer you a hand with your…recent security problem, and we happen to be, as the business card would suggest, security consultants. You might regret not hiring us.”

“We’ve got the matter well in hand.”

“I’m sure you do. However, there’s something you might like to see. Ted?” Chuck’s video feed swung toward Morgan, and those sweltering in the van watched as the shorter man pulled a briefcase up onto the table and took his time opening it, his motions as meticulous and precise as Sarah had coached them to be. He pulled a single sheet of paper out and passed it to Chuck, who slid it across the table to Hugh Cartwright. “Recognize that?”

Cartwright fumbled in the breast pocket of his coat for a pair of reading glasses to scan over the paper. After a moment, his mouth bowed down with displeasure. He set the paper on the table. “Now,” he said in such a quiet voice, “you have thirty seconds before I have you arrested.”

“Fair enough,” Chuck said. Sarah expected that the nerves would increase, but the nerd seemed to be on a roll. “But if you have us arrested, you’ll never know where that key is.”

Cartwright was beginning to turn red from rage, Sarah saw. She picked up the microphone, just in case. “I will not be blackmailed!”

“Mr. Cartwright, you misunderstand,” Morgan said. “We’re not here to blackmail you. We want to help you get your stolen property back.”

“My colleague is right,” Chuck said.

“Thanks, Bill.”

“No problem. Mr. Cartwright, you are unaware of the full magnitude of events that happened in your office last Friday. Your property was stolen, as was the drive containing the full code I just showed you there,” and the video stream bobbled as Chuck nodded at the paper on the table, “but they were not stolen by the same people. Our client, who would prefer to remain nameless at this…” Chuck paused to think of a word.

“Juncture,” Sarah supplied for him.

“Juncture, but has expressed the wish for your stolen property to be returned. Unfortunately, my client only has the key.” Chuck leaned forward slightly. Here came the push, Sarah thought, and the riskiest part of the whole day—or so she had thought when they were planning it out. It turned out that Hugh Cartwright was a lot more blunt than she had expected. She stored this information away. It could be worked out to their benefit in future meetings. “But Rand Securities is willing to…retrieve your stolen property for you.”

Cartwright looked less than amused. “And how am I to know that your client doesn’t simply have the property and is trying to pull a fast one over my company?”

“We do our jobs at Rand,” Morgan said. “We know exactly how much your company is worth, and how much your…property would fetch on the open market.”

If she hadn’t been playing cons all of her life, Sarah might have missed the instinctive flinch on Cartwright’s part, the way his eyes shifted just a little bit to the left. Gotcha, she thought. She lowered her hand, and tension seemed to drain out of the van’s occupants just like that. Quietly, she cut off the microphone like she had seen Lester do it a few minutes before.

“And why would Rand be interested in doing this at all, then?”

Chuck’s video feed bounced, and Sarah wondered if he had just shrugged. If he had, they were going to have to work on losing that particular gesture. “We’re Good Samaritans,” the nerd said. “It’s honestly something of a bad habit, really.”

“Uh-huh. And how do I know you’re not just willing to take a cut in pay to expedite the process?” Cartwright asked, his eyes narrowing.

“Because Rand Securities is willing to deliver to you the persons responsible for the theft your software.” On the video, those in the van saw Chuck clasp his hands together in front of him on the table. Ellie and Sarah exchanged a glance, which told Sarah that she wasn’t the only one who had noticed that they were shaking just a little.

“And what are you asking in return?”

“Immunity for our client.”

“And a small reward,” Morgan said, piping up for the first time in awhile. He leaned forward and put his hands on the table just like Chuck had, so that their video feeds were almost identical. “Just a little one.”

Sarah saw Chuck’s video twitch. She’d coached Morgan to say that, since Chuck had been uncomfortable with that part of the plan.

“I see.” Cartwright was silent for a long moment. He opened his mouth to say something, but Sarah never heard it.

The scream just about cut the air in the van in half. Sarah jumped in her seat, automatically wheeling about in search for danger. Ellie’s scream cut off with a squeak.

“What?” Sarah demanded. “What is it? What happened?”

“That—that just moved!” Ellie backpedaled frantically away, pointing at the corner behind Sarah, or more specifically, a pile of clothing Sarah didn’t really care to identify. “It moved, I swear it did!”

Jeff, still sacked out on the couch, snorted in his sleep.

“That’s probably just Bronwyn,” Lester said.

“Who the _hell_ is Bronwyn?” Ellie half-shrieked.

“Spider.” Lester turned back to the bay of monitors, apparently completely unconcerned with the fact that Ellie shrieked again.

Even Sarah had to be a bit nervous about that one. “What kind of spider?” she asked as Ellie scooted her chair back toward Awesome.

“I’ve got it, babe,” Awesome said, nearly hitting his head on the top of the van in his hurry to rescue his girlfriend from the Bronwyn the Arachnid.

“No, wait!” Jeff suddenly surged to life, his eyes wide and distressed. “Don’t kill her!”

“What kind of spider?” Sarah asked again.

Lester pushed both hands through his hair in aggravation. “She’s just a tarantula! She won’t hurt anybody! For heaven’s sake—”

 _Ye gods, spare me from incompetent crews and weirdly-named tarantulas_. “Shh!” Sarah hissed, holding up her hand for silence again. On screen, Hugh Cartwright looked like he was in the middle of delivering a long and important message to Chuck and Morgan, a message that Sarah had unfortunately missed due to the temporary chaos.

“Don’t hurt Bronwyn!” Jeff wailed.

“Nobody’s hurting Bronwyn,” Sarah said with calmness she didn’t feel.

“But—”

“Jeff, relax, your spider’s fine,” Awesome said.

Over the speakers, Cartwright’s words tumbled through. “And should you be successful in retrieving our stolen property, the reward offered by Boston Techtronics is of course paltry compared to some, but—”

“Ellie’s gonna kill her,” Jeff moaned.

Though Ellie looked both tempted and disgusted to do just that, she said, “I’m not going to kill your spider, Jeff.”

“We are prepared to offer three hundred and fifty thousand dollars for the safe return of our property and, if you want immunity for your colleague, the lawful apprehension of the party at fault.”

Silence fell in the van. Before the others could fully realize what was going on, Sarah turned the microphone back on. “Stay calm,” she said. “Do not freak out. That’s a normal bounty—a little on the low side, actually—so don’t panic or react, got it? I need you to stay on target.”

“Of-of course.” Chuck’s voice came over the speakers a little on the higher end of his range, but he was holding it together. “The immunity of our client is of course our…our top priority.”

“Very good,” Sarah told him, and covered the microphone with one hand. “Is there a way to talk just to Morgan?” she asked Lester.

He was wide-eyed and pale, jumpy, too. Three hundred fifty thousand dollars was a lot to these people, Sarah remembered. But thankfully Lester seemed so cowed by the sheer amount of money that he automatically obeyed her and nodded to show that she was now speaking only to Morgan.

“Morgan,” Sarah said, since Morgan’s video feed seemed to be shaking. “Morgan!”

The feed jolted a little bit.

“Do _not_ freak out,” Sarah said, putting every bit of steel possible into her words and grateful that Morgan feared not only women but attractive women. “If you freak out, and if you _show_ Cartwright you’re freaking out, I will pluck your beard, hair by hair, got me? Twiddle your thumb if you hear me.”

Morgan’s thumb twitched, then twiddled.

“Good. You’re doing a great job, keep it up.”

Sarah gestured that Lester should mute the microphone.

“He said what now?” Awesome asked for everybody, breaking the silence from the van. Ellie still looked like she couldn’t quite believe what had happened, Lester was beginning to shake with what Sarah suspected was the beginning of a rant or an intense longing for money. He unfortunately reminded her of a drug addict. And Jeff continued to stare glassily forward, possibly stunned silent by the amount or just succumbing to alcohol’s soporific effect. “Did he just—”

“Yes, he said three hundred fifty,” Sarah said, keeping one ear tuned to the conversation going on in the office. Chuck had taken hold of the conversation, and making promises that Rand Securities were the people for the job, which she appreciated. Morgan was still silent. “Is everybody OK?”

“Is he _for real_?” Lester burst out. “Three hundred and fifty _thousand_?”

“Yes. Which means that the software stolen is possibly worth millions.” Sarah felt yet another stab of shame at herself for having the wool pulled over her eyes so securely by Connor and his team, but she squashed it. Now was not the time to kick herself. “And if Cartwright has a pre-arranged sum already set up, chances are there might be other teams out there looking for that stolen software.”

_Which means they’ll be looking for me._

“Do you realize how many comic books I can buy with three hundred fifty smackeroos?” Lester asked, his eyes glazing over scarily like Jeff’s. “I’ll finally beat my fifth grade rival, Lenny Pavel! Victory will be mine! Rich! We’re going to be rich!”

“We have to find the software first,” Sarah said, turning her attention back to the conversation. She tuned the others in the van out, which was actually surprisingly easy given that it was now beyond hell-levels of hot inside the van, Lester and Jeff were by no means quiet in their exultations of victory over the childhood nemesis, and the pile of clothing in the corner once more twitched, perhaps Bronwyn the Tarantula joining in the celebration.

Cartwright was once again speaking. “Understand, gentlemen, that the reward offered is simply a token of good faith. If you fail to procure our software, my company will prosecute yourselves and your client to the fullest extent of the law.”

Sarah heard Morgan gulp, but Chuck seemed to hold it together. “Naturally. We would expect nothing less, though, just between you and me, Mr. Cartwright: we’re not going to fail. We’re good at our jobs. In fact, we’re the best out there.” He paused. “However, in the very, very slight chance that we do fail, I will speak personally with my client to see that your software key is returned.”

“That’s something, at least. Good day, gentlemen.”

“A pleasure doing business with you.” Handshakes were exchanged, Chuck assured Cartwright that he and Morgan knew the way out, and the video feeds bobbed in time to footsteps as Morgan and Chuck left the Boston Techtronics office, relatively unscathed. Sarah let out a long breath the instant they were on the elevator. She pulled the burn phone from her pocket and called Chuck.

She heard his ringtone go off on the audio feed. He answered almost right away. “William Cahill here.”

“Good job, William,” she said immediately.

“Uh, it’s Bill, actually.”

“Well, good job, _Bill_ , then. We’re all going to go our separate ways out here before we die of heat-stroke, but you and Morgan should know you did a good job in there.”

“Yes, thank you.” Chuck cleared his throat. Since the elevator doors opened into the lobby, he seemed to be scrambling for an excuse for the phone call. “Uh, I can’t make it at that time, would six work for you?”

“Who is it?” Morgan hissed at him.

In Morgan’s video feed, Sarah saw Chuck shoot him a look.

“Oh,” Morgan said, falling silent.

“Go ahead and head home, but drive around first and make sure nobody follows you. I’ll see you there.”

“OK.”

“And tell Morgan that it was Grace Kelly in _To Catch a Thief_ , not Deborah Kerr.”

She hung up on Chuck’s relieved snicker and turned to the rest of the van, who seemed to have calmed during her call to Chuck. She took a deep breath. She hated public speaking, and this was one of those occasions that felt like that. “Listen, there is a reward offered, yes. I knew there would be. But don’t count your chickens before they hatch. We still have to get that software, and we have to get the people who have it, too. Which means we need to get to work. Is everybody free for a planning meeting tonight?”

“Where would it be?” Lester asked. “I’ve got my Yiddish lesson in Woodland Hills.”

“We can use the apartment,” Ellie offered.

Sarah tried not to wince. “I’d rather we used that as little as possible for this,” she said. “I don’t want to bring even more crime into your home.”

Lester looked at Jeff. “Buy More?” he asked.

Jeff slurred something that might have been an affirmative.

“We can hold it at the Buy More,” Lester said. “It closes at nine, just show up at nine fifteen. Charles can let you in, and I’ll skip my lesson.”

It seemed as good a place as any, so Sarah nodded. “I’m going to jog back to the house,” she told Awesome and Ellie, the former of whom was still silent over the revelation of how much reward money was being offered. “Wait two minutes and then head out. Drive around, make sure you’re not being followed before you go home, OK?”

Once she got confirmations from everybody about what they needed to do, Sarah slipped from the stuffy van into the relief of a late August Los Angeles afternoon. She scanned the street for anybody watching her and took off at a moderate jog, grateful that Ellie and Awesome were so shocked by the reward money that they hadn’t nagged at her about her shoulder.

She was grateful for the time alone on her jog back to Chuck’s apartment. She needed the time to think.

  


* * *

  


Chuck beat her home, which surprised her since he had been battling Los Angeles traffic, while she’d only had a mild jog. Sure, she had gone a couple of extra blocks out of her way to buy herself more time, but she’d expected to find the apartment empty. She slipped in through the Morgan door and pulled up short. Chuck was sitting on the edge of the bed facing the door, down to his shirtsleeves and his suit-trousers. He had one hand on the back of his neck, the other hand bunched into a fist that rested on his knee.

“You made good time,” she said, gently pulling the window closed behind her.

He didn’t look at her. “Nobody followed us. Was I imagining that, Sarah, or did somebody really say that they would pay us three hundred and fifty—” He turned and stopped in the middle of his sentence.

“Thousand dollars?” Sarah asked. Her shoulder was stinging like nothing else, but she crossed to the dresser, where Chuck had considerately cleared out a couple of drawers for her, and began to rifle through. She had to move pretty quickly. “Yes. It’s actually not that much, considering, but I probably should have warned you about it. Did Morgan handle it OK? He seemed a bit shock-y.”

It took Chuck a couple of seconds to answer, and he had to clear his throat first. “He’s good. I dropped him off, and I imagine he’s busy seeing how much a custom Batmobile costs.”

“A Batmobile?”

“Yeah. I don’t think he can actually afford one, but you have to give Morgan points for creativity.” Chuck cleared his throat again, and Sarah realized exactly why he seemed to have problems with speech. She’d peeled off the T-shirt in the middle of her jog, figuring that there had to be some benefits to being attractive. After all, complete strangers weren’t likely going to stare at the bruising around her shoulder when they could be focused on other…assets.

And now it wasn’t just complete strangers staring at her.

“We can’t start spending that money yet, Chuck,” Sarah said. Absurdly, she felt a flush building from somewhere around her collarbones. _That’s strange_. She’d never had a problem being uncomfortable around men staring at her—she’d gotten used to it early after her “transformation” after high school—but for Chuck to do so was wreaking hell on her heart rate. Maybe it was something to do with the fact that she knew just how devastating his mouth and hands could be. So she cleared her throat, just like Chuck had. “We have to get the software back from Connor and all of them first.”

Chuck blinked and jumped. When he looked away quickly, flushing red, Sarah heard something inside of her go _aww_. “Yeah, of course. You’re right, I know that. It’s just Morgan. He gets excited.”

“OK.” Sarah picked the black shirt and took her time folding the other one back into the drawer, hiding her wince whenever the movement jostled her shoulder. She wanted nothing more than to take a long shower and curl up with an ice pack while she mulled over what had happened with Boston Techtronics, but there simply wasn’t time. She’d have to down about four Advil before her shower and hope for the best, since it would be awhile before she could put the sling back on. She collected the clothing she would need after her shower, bundling it and keeping it away from her sweaty body, and turned.

Chuck stood in the doorway, just watching her.

“OK, that’s a little creepy,” Sarah told him, looking from him to the edge of the bed he’d just vacated.

Chuck swallowed hard and blinked, seeming to come back to himself. “Uh, right. Wow. Yeah, sorry. I was apparently working on my Boris Karloff impression.”

Sarah gave him a puzzled look.

“Creepy actor from the thirties?” Chuck asked. When Sarah shook her head, he gave her an incredulous look. “How do you know who Grace Kelly is, but not Boris Karloff?”

“I’m a woman of limited talent,” Sarah told him, rolling her eyes. As she did so, however, she caught the look that flashed briefly across Chuck’s face. Her own eyes widened. “Are you serious? I’m all covered in sweat and gross. How can you—”

“You’re all dewy,” Chuck said. He licked his lips and Sarah felt her own willpower plummet, which was why she didn’t step back when he moved closer to her. The rational part of her shouted that she didn’t have much time, that she needed to _move_ if she was going to stick to the next part of the plan, and her shoulder was aching like a beast, but the rest of her didn’t give a damn. “I just want to…”

He didn’t have to finish the sentence, but by then, Sarah didn’t really want him to. She entertained one last thought that she needed to push Chuck away, that she really was quite grimy and disgusting from her run, that she had no business mussing up his nice shirt with her griminess, before Chuck descended. He didn’t seek permission this time, as he had in San Antonio. He just set in, all lips and tongue and teeth, so completely that Sarah flailed out her good arm in surprise. Her palm connected with something, and she heard a crashing noise. She didn’t care.

She pressed against Chuck, nearly gritting her teeth as the act jarred her shoulder, her good hand already reaching for his tie. Chuck’s hands spread across her bared midriff, his fingers spreading deliciously across her ribcage so that his thumbs brushed the hem of her sports-bra. Sarah gasped and kissed him more fiercely, her fingers fumbling with the knot on his tie.

 _I don’t have time for this_ , the rational part of her brain warned her.

Sarah told it to shut up.

She whimpered when Chuck’s elbow accidentally nudged her bad arm outward, but he mistook the noise for pleasure, his thumbs trailing higher under her bra. Sarah nearly let her head fall back from the pleasure, especially when Chuck backed her into something. The dresser, her foggy mind supplied. Her bad elbow crashed into something.

This time, there was nothing pleasurable about the whimper. Sarah saw sparks at the edges of her vision. “Wait,” she gasped, but Chuck was already backing up, his eyes wide and panicked.

“Oh my god, I’m so sorry, your arm—”

“It’s fine,” Sarah said, deliberately unclenching her jaw so that her words wouldn’t come out strangled. “Seriously, it’s fine.”

“But…” Chuck blinked heavily at her for a second, the look on her face enough to stop his stream of babble before it could start. “I’m sorry,” he said at length, looking unhappy. “I forgot. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

“You didn’t,” Sarah said, not moving away from the dresser, which she was pretty certain she was using as a brace at this point. “Chuck, it’s not you. You didn’t hurt me.”

“But your shoulder—”

“Shouldn’t have taken it out of the sling,” Sarah said, allowing herself to grit her teeth now since the shoulder was now beginning to throb. Purposefully, she pushed herself off of the dresser and bit back another whimper. “That was my fault, not yours. And maybe it’s a good thing. I really do need to go.”

Now the panic across Chuck’s face changed. “Go? Go where?”

“The mall.” Sarah stooped to pick up the clothes she had dropped, but Chuck beat her to it. For a man who had just rounded second base at a sprint, he seemed almost squeamish as he handed her the bra.

He gave her a puzzled look. “Why are you going to the mall?”

“You did your part in the first stage of the con, now it’s time for me to do mine.” Sarah took the clothes and bundled them up again, hiding her wince as she rose to her full height. If she hurried, she could shower and still have enough time to set up the stakeout. She took a deep breath before she stood on tiptoe to kiss the corner of Chuck’s mouth, staying in that pose until he reluctantly returned her smile, even though she was more than aware of just how bad she smelled. At least Chuck didn’t seem to mind it. “It’s about time I said hello to an old friend, don’t you think?”

And with that, she padded off to go shower and beat her head against the wall a few times where Chuck couldn’t see her. _Damn shoulder_.


	16. Sarah the Old Friend

Sarah watched Chuck out of the corner of her eye. They’d argued when she had insisted on coming to the mall by herself. It hadn’t been a harsh argument, but neither had budged: Chuck hadn’t wanted Sarah to wander out on her own, and Sarah hadn’t wanted Chuck anywhere near what she was about to do.

The compromise was that Sarah now had a tall, nerdy bodyguard. He also looked mildly ridiculous.

She picked up a scented candle, one of the ones that didn’t have a screw-off top since her arm had gone from “mildly uncomfortable” to “approaching agony.” Despite Chuck’s arguments, however, it wasn’t in the sling. The longer she could avoid letting people know she was injured, the better. Carefully, she took her time smelling the candle—too sweet—and putting it back on the shelf. Then she picked up the burn phone out of her pocket and sent a text.

A minute later, halfway across the store, Chuck’s phone beeped. He pulled it out, read the text, and scowled. He pulled off his sunglasses, but thankfully, he didn’t send Sarah an annoyed look, which meant he had been listening to her lecture in the car. He was still wearing the black hoodie jacket, black ball-cap pulled low over his eyes, and dark trousers—in August—but at least he was no longer wearing those shades. He looked like some sort of nerdy Goth bouncer that had been let out into the daylight. Sarah would never have believed that he had conned a security company with a straight face less than two hours before.

She picked up another candle, sniffed that, set it down. She moved over to the next rack. If she focused, she could almost feel the pinpricks of Chuck’s eyes watching her, spreading delicious heat through her midsection. She tried not to think about it, or about just how hot that kiss had been in his bedroom earlier.

As if to remind her why thinking about it was a bad idea, her arm throbbed so badly that she gritted her teeth. And in that moment, she spotted her quarry.

Relief and nerves entwined in her midsection, but as casually as she could, she strolled out of the candle shop and headed across the main promenade of the mall. Her mark didn’t notice the tail at all, focused as he was on the prize inside the arcade.

The wary side of Sarah told her that it was almost too easy. She ignored it, as that seemed a bit paranoid even after she’d been betrayed by her crew. Instead of trying not to draw attention, she instead just chose to be a leggy blonde in a mall. She pulled out her cell phone and if her arm hadn’t stung to high heaven, she would have twirled a loop of hair around her finger. Instead, she called Chuck. “Yeah, totally,” she said when he picked up, picking up the airheaded act she had developed long before she could fully comprehend what being an airhead meant. “Listen, are you, like, down by the food court? I lost Tiffany and Mariah and I can’t find them, like, anywhere.”

“Got it,” Chuck said, as “food court” had been their code phrase that she had spotted her target. She heard his amused pause. “Tiffany and Mariah? These are, ah, close friend of yours?”

“Ohmigod,” Sarah said, deliberately raising her voice to an octave that would hurt a dog’s ears. She practically heard Chuck’s wince. “Like, shut up! I’ll be right there after I just check out this super-cute top.”

“I will pay you money to never talk like that again,” Chuck said, almost managing to not sound worried. “Good money.”

Sarah couldn’t stop the snicker as she hung up. She pocketed the burn phone, dropped the act, and strolled into the arcade. None of the geeks hanging around the arcade on a Wednesday afternoon dared mess with the blonde with the purpose in her step and a fire in her eyes.

She’d timed it well; her target had had time to find his game and had already inserted his quarters into the machine. She arrived right as he rose back to his full height. Fury and frustration and fear and a thousand other emotions propelled her as she used her momentum to slam a fist right into the center of his back, between his shoulder blades.

A combination of Sarah’s strength and Scopes’s lack of body mass meant that the computer geek went flying into the screen. He cursed as his forehead hit the Dance Dance Revolution monitor. The monitor didn’t crack. Sarah didn’t care.

“What the _hell_?” she demanded, grabbing the back of Scopes’s hipster sweater and yanking until he was facing her. “What the hell, Scopes?”

His face went from red to dead white in under a second. “Ah, Sarah—hi—”

“Hi,” Sarah said, giving him a smile that could freeze the depths of hell. “We need to talk.” And because she was feeling vicious, and her shoulder hurt, and it was all Scopes’s fault that she was in this position at all, she shoved him back against the monitor. He flailed back and nearly crashed to the floor between the two DDR monitors.

One of the braver geeks wandered away from the pinball machine in the corner. “Uh, do I need to call security?”

Scopes coughed. He sounded asthmatic, and it made the sadistic side of Sarah want to smile. “Uh, no, we’re OK. Thanks, it’s fine.”

“Are you sure?” the geek asked.

Sarah merely turned in place and froze him to the floor with a look.

“Guess not,” the geek said, and fled.

“Where’s my money, Scopes?” Sarah asked.

Scopes let out another rattling cough and climbed slowly to his feet, looking pained. Since he was thin to the point of looking anorexic, Sarah figured she’d probably broken a couple of his bird-like bones. “How,” he said, and coughed out a wrenching noise that sounded like a dying elephant. “How are you not in jail now?”

Nerves jumped in her stomach, but Sarah’s face never changed. “You think I didn’t see that double-cross coming?” She forced herself to roll her eyes. “What, like it’s my first rodeo? I want you to know you and Connor and your buddy Terrence are going to hell for what you did, Scopes.” She leaned forward and deliberately dropped her voice to a provocative whisper. “And I’m going to laugh the whole way down. You got that?”

Scopes mumbled something.

“What was that?”

“I said we’re not buddies.” Scopes scowled and pushed his finger-smudged glasses up his nose. “I didn’t want to cross you, Sarah.”

He would pull out a violin and start playing any second now, the skeptical part of Sarah thought. The rest of her just wanted to tell the hacker that there was only a soft spot for one nerd—and his goofy friends—in her life now. So she fixed Scopes with a stare that had once made a grown man break down and cry. “So why the hell did you?”

“I didn’t have a choice!” Scopes pulled off his cap and rubbed his fingers through his hair; Sarah tried not to wince as the action sent another wave of unwashed stench across the arcade. “Connor, he was threatening me, unless I emptied your accounts, and I didn’t have a choice because you know he’s connected.”

She hadn’t known, and the thought sent a chill through her that had nothing to do with the overworked air conditioning unit inside the arcade. “Likely story.”

“I have pictures, I can show you—”

Sarah glared. It was enough to make Scopes stop in the middle of his sentence and flinch. “Don’t you dare reach for your phone,” Sarah said. “Keep your hands where I can see them.”

“OK. OK, I won’t do anything. Are you…” Scopes licked his lips and Sarah tried not to look at his teeth. Had the geek never heard of hygiene? “Are you going to kill me?”

“Unfortunately, as much as I’d love to shove one of these video game controllers down your throat and leave your body to rot in the L.A. River, you’re more use to me alive than dead.” Sarah could see the tips of Scopes’s fingers beginning to tremble. It might have stirred up pity even a week before. There was nothing left but disgust. “You’re going to take a message to Connor for me. I have something you need.”

An untrained observer might not have noticed it, but Sarah had been on the grift her entire life, so she caught the way Scopes’s cheek twitched. She would have time to feel relieved later.

“Oh, yeah, that’s right. I said this wasn’t my first rodeo, and I meant it. You want to sell that software to your buyer? You need the key, and I have the key. I want in. I want fifty percent off the top.”

“Fifty per—” Scopes’s eyes bulged before he slapped a hand over his mouth. “Are you insane? Connor will never go for that!”

“I bet your buyers have a time limit on this software,” Sarah said, forcing a smugness she didn’t feel. “I bet they’re getting real impatient, too.”

Again, Scopes’s cheek twitched.

_Oh yeah. I’ve got you now, bastard._

“Actually, you know what?” Sarah made a show of tilting her head and thinking it over. “I want sixty percent.”

“Sixty!”

“Yeah, consider the ten percent pain and suffering. You give me my cut, we consider this water under the bridge or over the dam, whatever. And I don’t take the extensive details I’ve spent the past week digging up about you and yours to my father. You know him, right? Jack Burton?” It wasn’t often Sarah dropped her father’s name, as she hadn’t seen him in a couple of years, but doing time in prison had made Jack Burton a bit of a legend among conmen.

Indeed, Scopes’s eyes widened.

“You bring my cut to the drop I’ll arrange, we walk away, no feelings hurt. And let’s face it, Bertrand.” Even though Scopes’s body odor was killing her by inches, Sarah leaned in just enough to see the whites of his eyes widen even further as she used his real name, something she had kept in her stores for just the right rainy day. “You screw me over again, and you’re going to wish you had been found in the L.A. River, mob connections or not.”

She waited, never blinking, until Scopes hurriedly bobbed his head up and down. He was quivering all over again, and it should have made Sarah feel satisfied, but all she felt was annoyed that she couldn’t rough him up some more. Her shoulder was _killing_ her.

“How can we get a hold of you?” Scopes asked, his voice trembling.

Sarah very carefully reached into her pocket and pulled out the piece of paper she’d had Chuck write up for her. “That’s an email I’ve set up for your use. I’ll email you the drop time and location. If you’re late, the deal’s off. If you try to double-cross me again…” She let her voice trail off as she tossed the paper on the ground at Scopes’s feet. “Don’t try to trace it, computer guy’s the best in the business. And if you send the cops after me, Bert, you’re going to regret it.”

“I won’t,” Scopes promised quickly, bending down to scoop up the paper. “I swear, I won’t.”

“Good. Now, get the hell out of here.”

Sarah waited until Scopes had hit the door running before she stepped down off of the DDR playing pad. She frowned. She’d hoped that would be a hell of a lot more satisfying than it had been, even if it had gone completely according to plan.

Stage two done, she thought. Now they just had to pick a place, arrange a drop, and pull off the greatest con of their lives with a completely inexperienced crew. Piece of cake, really.

“You OK?” the nerd at a shoot-em-up game asked as she wandered by. Sarah nearly ignored him out of habit, but both the voice and the outline of his butt beneath his black pants had her swiveling in her spot and gaping. Chuck had followed her into the arcade, and it looked like he was well in the middle of a game that involved shooting zombies of some type. He sneaked a glance at her between shots. “Sarah? Hello?”

Instantly, shame and embarrassment rose. How much had he heard? Oh god. Had he seen her attempt to break Scopes’s skull against a video game console? Damn it, she hadn’t wanted him to witness that side of her. Not that he’d seen anything good from her this week as he’d so far committed over a dozen crimes to save her from the cops, drive her to pick up a secret stash of getaway funds, and on top of that, he had been cock-blocked at every turn by her shoulder injury. Now he could add assault of a computer nerd half her weight.

_Damn it, I used to be smooth around men._

“Sarah?” Chuck actually lowered the video game pistol. “Seriously, are you OK?”

“I—I’ll meet you outside.” Sarah turned on her heel and strode out of the arcade. She didn’t stop walking there, though. If Scopes was smart enough to scope out the arcade—she doubted it, as he was probably in a corner somewhere, wetting himself in terror—she didn’t want to draw too much attention to herself or Chuck. It proved to be a wise move; as she hurried off, she heard the slap of the plastic game pistol hitting the front of the console, and Chuck’s steps racing after her.

Thanks to his long legs, he caught up with her quickly. He stepped right into her path, so that Sarah had to pull up short or crash into him. “What’s wrong?” Chuck asked, putting his hands on her upper arms.

She let out an involuntary hiss when the move jarred her shoulder.

“Oh god, it’s your shoulder, isn’t it? You should be wearing a sling, I knew you should be wearing a sling, and I didn’t argue hard enough, and now your arm’s going to fall off.”

Sarah inexplicably wanted to cry. How was he being so nice to her—well, bossy to her, which was his own way of caring—after the display he’d just seen? After she’d almost sent him to the wolves at Boston Techtronics earlier that day?

“No,” she said, her tone short as she worked to keep the waterworks inside. “It’s not my shoulder. I just—look, can we keep walking? I don’t want to attract attention, and we really should get out of here.”

“What? Oh, sure, no problem.” Chuck took care to walk to her right side, where he wouldn’t jostle her bad arm. The move made Sarah want to cry harder. “We’re going home and getting the sling on it, and then you’re getting off your feet. We’ll have a movie marathon until it’s time to go to the meeting later. I can introduce you to _Firefly_ or _Battlestar Galactica_ or something. It’ll be educational.”

The first damning sniffle escaped. Chuck froze like a conman trapped in a police spotlight. “Did you just…Sarah, what’s wrong? What’d I do?”

“Nothing.” Sarah put every ounce of willpower she had into forcing the tears back. They’d made it as far as the food court, which was right next to the exit where Chuck’s car was parked. “Nothing, I don’t want to talk about it here, OK? Let’s just go.”

“Actually, hold on a second. Have a seat.” Chuck leaned around Sarah to pull a chair out from the nearest table and pointed at it. “Sit, sit.”

“Chuck, what are you—” But he was already gone, striding off. Perplexed now, Sarah debated if she wanted to follow him. Her arm screamed that running right now would be a bad idea, so in the end, she chose to sit. _Damn it to hell, why didn’t he stay in the candle shop like we agreed he would?_

_Because he’s Chuck._

He hadn’t even batted an eyelash at seeing her threaten to kill somebody. Granted, she didn’t know if she could pull the trigger, but something deep inside of her whispered that yes, she could. Cons occasionally called for violence, though Sarah always hated those and avoided them like the plague. Sometimes, however, things got rough. Things didn’t go according to plan, or a mark got too rough, and sometimes violence was the only answer.

But she hadn’t wanted him to see that potential for violence that existed in her in sometimes frightening waves. Didn’t they have _enough_ to deal with? Now he just saw more of the criminal half of her.

Sarah heard footsteps approaching. “Here,” Chuck’s voice said, and his hand appeared in front of her, holding an ice cream cone. “For you.”

Sarah blinked at it almost stupidly.

“Ice cream,” Chuck said, wiggling it a little. “I got you strawberry because it occurred to me we’ve really known each other less than three weeks and I don’t even know your favorite flavor of ice cream, but strawberry’s pink. That’s cheerful, right? C’mon, take it before it drips on my fingers.”

“You got me ice cream,” she said, dazed.

“Your arm’s hurting you. Giving you a hug would only make it worse, so instead I got you ice cream.” Chuck waited until she was on her feet again before he pushed the chair back to the table. “I heard the sniffle. Don’t try to deny it.”

“It wasn’t—I didn’t—” Sarah sighed at the ice cream in her hand. At the rate Chuck was going, she would become a gooey puddle in the floor long before the strawberry ice cream had the chance to do the same. She licked the edge to keep from forming pink runnels over her fingers. “It’s not the shoulder.”

“What is it, then?”

She shouldn’t tell him, Sarah knew, but he looked so genuinely concerned. “I told you to wait in the candle shop,” she said, despair in her voice.

“I’m sorry I didn’t. I just...you didn’t have back-up and though I may be lanky of build and not much good in a fight, I didn’t want you going in there alone if there was going to be fisticuffs.” Chuck had both of his hands shoved amiably in his pockets as they walked. His eyebrows rose in an impressed look. “Turns out I didn’t need to worry.”

“I know. That’s the problem.”

“I’m sorry? I’m not following.”

“I didn’t want you to _see_ that.” Sarah scowled as she continued to eat the ice cream. It was, of course, delicious. “I didn’t have to beat on him much, but even so, I didn’t want you to see that.”

Chuck looked a bit puzzled. “Why not?”

“Because I wanted to strangle him, then shoot him, and kick his lifeless corpse, and I don’t want you seeing that side of me.”

Chuck was silent for a minute. Mortified by her outburst, Sarah stared determinedly at the ice cream cone in front of her.

Finally, Chuck broke the silence. “Wait, so you’re upset that I saw you have a violent side?”

Sarah didn’t say anything. Put that way, it sounded a bit ridiculous.

“That was one of the guys that set you up, right?” Chuck didn’t wait for an affirmation. “I wanted to punch him in the face, which is a big deal. I don’t punch just anybody with these moneymakers.” He held up his hands, wiggling his fingers. “They’re far too valuable for that.”

Sarah felt the first shoot of humor stab through the despair, but it wasn’t enough. She just kept staring at the ice cream. “Oh, yeah, you looked real angry while you were playing your video game.”

“I’ll have you know I was imagining his face on all of the zombies. It was quite cathartic.” Chuck’s voice sounded a little sheepish, and it struck a chord in Sarah. Her neuroses really had no defense against the full assault that was ice cream and Chuck Bartowski’s honesty, she discovered.

Still, she looked at him for a long time as they reached his car. “How the hell are you so normal and grounded?”

He faced her, looking over the roof of the Herder. “Normal?” he asked. “I’m a college drop-out who works for an hourly wage at an electronics superstore, and I live with my sister.” He laughed, and it sounded forced to Sarah’s ears. “I’m a little worried if that’s your version of normal and grounded.”

“You’re better than all of that,” Sarah said without thinking about it. “And you’re more than that.” She didn’t point out that she’d never had a working definition of “normal,” as “normal” changed every week depending on what she and her father were doing.

Chuck was silent for a long moment, just staring at her. “You think so,” he said, and there was a wondering note in his voice. Before Sarah could confirm that she did, he nodded to himself just a little, and she had no idea what the gesture meant. “C’mon, let’s go back and get that arm in a sling. _Firefly_ marathon, here we come.”


	17. Sarah the Browncoat

They took the back route into the Buy More, using the loading dock entrance since the security cameras were still out. She didn’t need it, but Sarah let Chuck help her up onto the dock. They had spent the afternoon and part of the evening watching Firefly and even though Sarah still wasn’t quite sure what exactly had been going on—who on earth mixed cowboys and pirates and space in any logical manner?—she had enjoyed it solely because at some point, they had naturally shifted to where she was leaning against Chuck, using him as a seat back, and he had wrapped an arm around her, careful not to jar her bad shoulder. It would have been simply comfortable and comforting, except that Chuck had idly rubbed his thumb over her arm at random intervals, and she had shivered accordingly.

Come to think of it, Sarah thought now as Awesome helped Ellie onto the loading dock while balancing the three boxes of pizza they had picked up for the crew, missing half of the first episode of _Firefly_ due to an extended and heated make-out session probably hadn’t helped her understand the plot much.

As if he were reading her thoughts, Chuck glanced over at her, and gave her the smile that took several stages to fully overtake his face. Her heart fluttered in response. _I’m finally beginning to understand why they call it “lovesick.” This really is just sickening. The worst part may be that I don’t even care._

Morgan was waiting for them before they could reach the cage. He’d apparently worked after the con that afternoon, for he wore the green shirt and khakis of a Buy More worker once more, though he’d paired it with a strange long-sleeved striped shirt that somehow clashed horribly and didn’t clash at all. Sarah was more impressed by his shoes: she hadn’t seen him wear the same pair twice.

“Got what you were asking for,” he said in lieu of greeting, holding up a shopping bag.

Chuck took it so before Sarah could, though she said, “Thank you, Morgan. Was it hard to find them?”

“No, actually, we sell the same model here.” Morgan looked proud of that. “But I did have to run over to the Beverly Hills Buy More. Did you know they’ve switched to sweaters? We live in southern California! It’s summer! But I did it, even though I don’t understand why you needed fourteen of them.”

“Call me paranoid,” Sarah said.

She gave Chuck a mock-glare when he, Awesome, and Morgan all said, “OK.”

Jeff and Lester had beaten them all to the cage. Sarah wasn’t entirely sure why they were dressed like the Blues Brothers, but she figured it was better not to ask. The others seemed to agree with her, since no comments were made as they dug into the pizzas and took seats on the available surfaces: the desk, the chair, old, dusty computer towers. Sarah gestured for Chuck to start off. It might be her crew, but Chuck had years more experience with everybody and the plan had been his idea. He could run the meeting.

“So, we survived today, so that’s a plus,” Chuck said, perching on a low shelf where he could see the whole cage.

As far as congratulatory speeches went, Sarah wasn’t sure if she was more amused by just how on-the-nose it was, or by the fact that it was probably the worst one she’d ever heard.

“Nobody looked at us at Boston Techtronics and said, ‘Who called the Nerd Herd?’ and even more importantly, security didn’t have to escort us out. I would call that a win,” Chuck went on.

From his perch on a computer tower, Morgan spluttered to life in indignation. “A win, Chuck? Is that it? I would call that a smashing success!”

“Let’s not count our eggs before they—”

“I mean, did the man or did the man not offer us three hundred and fifty thousand dollars?” Morgan looked around to gather support, earning clapping from Jeff and Lester and a “Hear, hear!” from Awesome.

“Which would be the definition of counting our eggs before they hatch,” Chuck deadpanned, and Sarah was positive she was the only one that heard him over the noise. He gave her a partially exasperated look and she shrugged back at him a “What can you do?” fashion.

It was Ellie’s turn to save the day, apparently. “Simmer down!” she called, loudly enough that the cheering immediately stopped. “We’re not through with the plan yet, guys.”

“Ellie’s right,” Sarah said. “The hard part’s still to come.”

“Wait a second.” Lester looked distinctly panicked. “We have to do _more work_? I don’t know how I feel about this. I thought this was supposed to be easy.”

“It’s supposed to _look_ easy,” Sarah told him. “It never is.”

“Oh.”

Sarah glanced at Chuck. He understood and waved that she should go ahead. “I’ve set some things in motion,” she announced to the group, risings so that she could cross over to sit next to Chuck on the shelf. It wobbled a little, but seemed to hold both of their weights. “I got in touch with the crew that burned me, let them know I was holding the key.”

“Why would you do that?” Ellie asked, looking a little panicked. “And are you OK? Did they try to hurt you?”

“Hurt her? Are you kidding? She was like a vengeful goddess of—shutting up now.” Chuck trailed off at the look on Sarah’s face.

“Scopes doesn’t have the muscle mass to hurt a fly,” Sarah said.

“But if they know we have the key, doesn’t that mean they can find us and take it?” Morgan asked.

“Which is why I had you buy these,” Sarah said, and showed everybody the bag full of thumb-drives shaped like little frogs. “Chuck’s going to make some dupes and we’ll each keep a couple.”

“Like Three-Card Monte?” Lester asked, and Jeff burped. Behind his sunglasses, Sarah wasn’t even sure if he was awake. She hoped not. As the van had proved earlier that day, a sleeping Jeff was much easier to tolerate.

“Exactly,” Chuck said. “Sarah initiated contact with her old crew, the one that burned her, and they think she’ll be cutting in on their deal, but in reality, we’re going to set up a sting and take all of the stolen software to Boston Techtronics.”

“We can do that?” Awesome asked. “Not that it’s not an awesome plan, Sarah, Chuck, but this isn’t an electronics company we’re dealing with anymore. These are the same conmen that, no offense, Sarah, but these are the same guys that took you for everything you own.”

“He’s right,” Morgan said. “We’re a bunch of nerds who have a hard time figuring out the difference between real life and Halo. How can we possibly hope to do this?”

“Well, I’m the one calling the shots, so Connor and the others will have to listen to me,” Sarah said, glancing at Chuck once to see how he was feeling about all of this. “Which means that we’ll get to choose the high ground.”

“And that matters because…?” Lester asked.

“The high ground is everything in a con,” Sarah said. “You have to know how to work your way through any situation, but if you’re the one that knows what’s going on, you’re operating with more information than your mark. By choosing the time and date and location, we’re the ones in charge, we know more than Connor, and we can lure him into a trap.”

She leaned forward, an old trick her father had taught her to make sure she had everybody’s attention. She’d never really had to use it since she preferred letting others lead, but Jack Burton’s tricks always worked.

Except the time the ATF had raided the house. No trick could have saved Jack then.

But she had everybody’s attention now. “The most important thing to know is appearances,” she said, meeting everybody’s eyes in turn. “You may be a so-called bunch of nerds, but Connor doesn’t know that, OK? Chuck and Morgan proved it today when they walked right into Boston Techtronics and all but admitting to aiding a fugitive. And instead of getting arrested, they walked out with an offer of three hundred fifty thousand dollars on the table.”

“Connor thinks he’s getting off easy,” Chuck said, easily picking up the narrative. “He’s going to think Sarah just wants a cut of the buy-off for the software so that she can cut her losses, so to speak. He’ll be wary about revenge, yes, but guys, did we or did we not kick Beverly Hill Buy More’s ass at the Monty Python quote-a-thon last year?”

Jeff nodded his head, even as Lester and Morgan murmured that they had, and Ellie said, “I don’t really know what you’re talking about, but sure.”

“Compared to that, this will be a cinch,” Chuck went on. “We just have to pick the high ground and work from there.”

“So,” Sarah said, “where is the high ground for a bunch of nerds?”

“Arcade,” Morgan said immediately.

“Benny’s,” Jeff slurred, and Sarah wasn’t sure she wanted to know.

“Could do it here at the Buy More,” Lester said.

“Nowhere near our home turf,” Sarah said. “If something goes wrong, I don’t want them finding you guys.”

Everybody blinked at her. _Oh, right, that’s probably a bad thing to say. Way to give them a complex, Sarah._

“I kind of like the idea of an arcade,” Chuck said, speaking quickly to fill the silence before everybody could dwell on her statement. She sent him a grateful look. “Having a lot of people around will prevent them from being able to do much, don’t you think?”

“It might look out of place in an arcade,” Awesome pointed out, “if they’re bringing computers and stuff. They’re bringing computers and stuff, right?”

Sarah confirmed that they would be. They would have to test the key, she knew, before they handed off the software to the buyer.

“So we need somewhere where that would blend in.”

“A coffee shop?”

“Too quiet,” Ellie said.

Sarah let the suggestions go on for a little while. A roller-skating rink was the most puzzling of the lot, but she let it pass, listening to the others debate places where nerds could legitimately rule. She wasn’t sure who said it first, but Jeff slurred, “Priest-Con rules!”

“You’re conning priests?” Sarah asked, alarmed. Even Jack, who had regularly dipped into the Salvation Army pots at Christmastime to pay for present, left religion alone.

“No, it’s an event called Priest-Con,” Morgan explained. “It’s called that partially because of Matt Priest, Assassin for Hire, but mostly because—”

“It’s a religious event,” Morgan, Jeff, and Lester finished together.

Sarah glanced at Chuck, who looked like he might have joined in, and then at Ellie and Awesome. At least they seemed confused, too, which made her feel better. “I’m not sure I understand. Whose money are you taking if it’s a Priest-Con?”

She heard Jeff and Lester snicker, but at least Morgan and Chuck looked apologetic. “In this case, con would be short for convention, not confidence,” Chuck said, leaning in toward her. “It’s a gathering of nerds in a huge room with all of their interests—TV shows, video games, movies, comic books—joining together for one big, nerdy orgasm, really.”

Sarah raised an eyebrow at the word. Chuck’s cheeks flushed.

“It’s a public place,” Morgan said. “There would be a lot of people around, and we would fit right in.”

“Yes, but it’s both expensive and we can’t control any part of it,” Chuck said. “I don’t even know where it is this year.”

“Vegas, baby!” Jeff said.

“There are too many variables.” Chuck looked like he was approaching mulish, and Sarah cleared her throat to change the subject.

Lester, however, raised one dainty, spindly hand. “Au contraire, my dear Charles. Au contraire.”

“Oh, you have a way to make Priest-Con work?” Chuck asked, his face skeptical.

“I don’t, but Skip Johnson has a cousin.”

“We’re very happy for him,” Morgan cracked, as Sarah wondered who Skip Johnson was.

“A cousin who happens to be the event manager for a little thing called Priest-Con. He was texting about it Monday, don’t you remember?”

“Was a little bit busy on Monday,” Chuck muttered under his breath, and Sarah thought of the kiss in San Antonio on the side of the road.

“I’m sure Skip could help us get a booth,” Lester continued. “He owes me a few favors.”

Sarah did not want to know what this mysterious Skip Johnson had done, as it had to be pretty bad to inspire blackmail from Lester Patel. When she looked over, Ellie had a look on her face that told Sarah she agreed.

“Still too many variables,” Chuck said. “Priest-Con starts a week from Friday, that’s not nearly enough time to organize anything.”

“But it is the high ground, dude,” Morgan said. “How long have we been going to cons? How many have we been to over the years? We know everything there is to know about them, man.”

“We know how to find the bathrooms without the lines, Morgan, I don’t think that counts in this case.”

Morgan folded his arms over his chest. “Every advantage helps.”

Chuck squinted at his friend. “You’re just arguing this because you want to go to Priest-Con!” he said, sounding scandalized.

Indeed, Morgan looked a bit chastised. “I can’t help it. They said the entire cast of _Firefly_ booked this year, and this may be my one and only chance to get to see Gina Torres in person, Chuck! Gina _Torres_!”

Sarah, suddenly grateful she hadn’t spent the entire afternoon and evening making out with Chuck and had paid a little attention to the show, wondered if Gina Torres had played the crazy chick on _Firefly_. She didn’t know much about Morgan, but she could see him going for a schizophrenic. _Not that I’ll ever tell him that_. She liked Chuck’s short friend. He was oddly sweet.

“Look,” she said before an argument could break out, “maybe there’s another option. Let’s table, er, Priest-Con for now, and if we can’t think of anything else, come back to it?”

“One of my mom’s prison buddies owns an abandoned cement factory,” Jeff offered right away. “We could even torch the place after. She needs the insurance money.”

“Or maybe we should go to Priest-Con,” Sarah said without missing a beat. She looked at Morgan, trusting him the most of the three Buy More nerds not named Chuck. “Why don’t you coordinate with, er, Skip, _discreetly_ , and see if he can get us a booth? From what you’ve said, with all of the people around and, do these conventions have security?”

“Yes, dressed like Stormtroopers,” Chuck said.

Sarah had no idea what a Stormtrooper was, but she assumed it might be somebody wearing a raincoat. “Then that will help us out, too. Vegas isn’t too far away, but it _is_ away from our home turf, so to speak, so Connor and the others might think we don’t have an advantage since he doesn’t know we’re nerds.”

“Well, some of us are nerds,” Chuck said. “There are also a confidence woman and two doctors in attendance.”

“It really does sound like we should get on a big bus, drive around the country, and sing pop hits,” Awesome observed.

Everybody else ignored him, though Ellie did pat his shoulder.

“Either way, Morgan, you get on that, everybody else, maybe have another slice of pizza while I talk to Chuck a minute? OK, great.” Sarah snagged Chuck’s wrist and pulled him out of the cage and back into the warren of the Buy More stock room. When she was positive that none of the others had followed or could overhear, she stopped and let go of his wrist.

He raised his eyebrows at her, his face shadowed by the low light among the ceiling-high stacks. They were surrounded by cardboard boxes and random computer paraphernalia. It looked like the area had last been dusted during the Reagan administration. “Um, did your ‘it’s time to make-out with Chuck’ timer go off? I didn’t hear the ding.”

“Ha, ha,” Sarah said.

“I’m quite fond of the ding,” Chuck went on. “And of how often it happens, really.”

“Unfortunately this time it’s all business. How plausible is this Priest-Con idea?”

Chuck scratched his nose as he thought about it. “It’s a lot of variables,” he said at long last. “I know you’re used to that, and to winging it, but I don’t know if I trust these guys to stay on target near that much nerdery going on. Even for three hundred and fifty thousand.”

“And a couple of million?” Sarah asked.

Chuck choked. “A couple of million? _Dollars_?”

“Maybe. It could possibly Euros or some other currency, depending on the buyer. I’m still not sure what the software is, so I’m not sure who could be buying it and…are you OK? You’re turning red.” Or at least she thought he was. It was a bit hard to see in the low light of the back room.

Chuck began coughing. “I’m sorry, you lost me at the part where you said _million_.”

“Connor’s going to want the key badly enough that he’s going to have to bring the money as a show of faith, even though I’m ninety-nine percent sure he’s going to try and find a way to cheat me out of it. So there’s a very strong possibility, if it all goes according to plan, that we will walk away with that money.”

Instead of freaking out more, as she expected, Chuck went silent, frowning. “I don’t know how I feel about that,” he said.

“What do you mean?”

“That money’s stolen, right?”

“Yes, and since it’s an up-front payment that Connor will have to scrounge up, it was likely stolen from me.” Which rankled, but she didn’t let any of her anger about that show on her face. She’d used up her anger quotient for the day pushing Scopes around.

“But you stole it from other people,” Chuck said.

Sarah winced. “I did, yes.”

The light cast long shadows down Chuck’s face, a triangle across his forehead from the curls there and hiding his eyes from her in the hollows of darkness. “So I don’t think we should take that money.”

“But you’re OK with taking the three hundred and fifty thousand?” Sarah asked.

“It’s for a service we’re performing. It’s not entirely honest, since you technically did break in and steal the painting, but you were a patsy in that case and it’s forgivable.” Chuck took a deep breath. “And we’ll be giving the key and the painting back, so there’s that.”

“Chuck, the people I took that money from had insurance,” Sarah said. “There’s no point in giving it back to them.”

“But even though they had insurance, that doesn’t make it right. And it’s not our money.” Chuck’s frown deepened. “We need to give it to the police, or the FBI, or something.”

“Even though it would keep your people focused?” Sarah asked.

She could see that idea working through him, but Chuck just shrugged. “We’ll just have to have faith in our crew, as unbelievable as it is that I’m ever saying that about Jeffster.”

“It’s going to be a lot of money, Chuck.”

“The deal was, if I help you out, you’re out of the con life,” Chuck said, his face going from a frown to a scowl. “I don’t think taking the money lives up to that deal.”

“OK,” Sarah said.

She saw the surprise hit Chuck. “OK? That’s it? I thought you would argue about that more.”

“I don’t care about the money, Chuck.” Thought part of her did, Sarah knew. That much money meant security, but she had had that sort of security once, and it had burned her. Now, she had Chuck, who got her strawberry ice cream because it was cheerful, and who drove to San Antonio on nothing but faith. She took a deep breath. “But it’s a lot of money, and you need to know that up front. It can do things to people.”

She still couldn’t see his eyes clearly, but she was pretty positive Chuck blinked at her, stupefied. “So this is what, like a cautionary thing?”

“No, actually. I really did need to know if the con was a good idea, but…” Sarah wrapped her good hand in his T-shirt and tugged.

“I thought we were talking business?” Chuck asked, but she could see the smile starting to curl at the corners of his mouth.

“We talked business, we decided to have faith in our crazy crew and do the con at the, er, con, and now we’re closed for business.”

“That’s funny, I didn’t hear the ding,” Chuck said right before he swooped.

When they wandered back to the cage a couple of minutes later, after Sarah had straightened up her hair—not easy to do with just the one hand—Morgan and the others had finished their pizza slices and were talking in hushed tones. Sarah felt Chuck, walking beside her, still, and knew that something was up.

“What’s going on?” the nerd asked in a suspicious voice.

“We’ve talked it over,” Morgan said, apparently electing himself to speak for the group. “And if we’re going to really be working this job at a con, we’re going to need more people.”

Sarah felt her stomach twist. “More people?”

“Don’t worry, we’ve got the perfect people for this in mind,” Morgan said, possibly seeing the looks on both Sarah and Chuck’s faces. “It’s going to be awesome. Uh, the adjective, not the person. He’s already on the team.”

“We’re on,” Jeff said succinctly, “a mission from God.”

Priest-Con or not, that really didn’t make Sarah feel any better.


	18. Sarah the National Coffee Chain

“You sure you’re ready for this?” Chuck asked for the third time.

Sarah didn’t roll her eyes at him, though she contemplated doing so. He was sitting on the edge of his bed, which had become her bed for the week since they were still keeping up appearances for Ellie (and Chuck had pointed out that they would not actually get much sleep in the same bed), dressed in his Nerd Herd getup, though his tie was off and his overshirt was unbuttoned. The look had actually become the one she preferred. Something about that relaxing after work vibe, mixing in with the fact that the undershirts he wore actually showed off quite a bit of tone for a self-proclaimed nerd, just had a ball of lust curling in her stomach. _Of course, what doesn’t send me into fits of lust these days?_

She pulled the blouse she had decided for the planning session from her closet and set it on the dresser so that she could remove the sling and pull the blouse over her tank top. She didn’t really need it anymore, but living with two doctors apparently meant being overprotected. “It’s not a big deal,” she said. “I’ve worked with crews of all shapes and sizes, literally. Try working with Skinny Louie sometime.”

“I take it he’s not that skinny?”

“You know that old movie where the little girl chews a piece of gum and blows up like a balloon?”

“ _Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory_ , yeah.”

“She could be the offspring of Skinny Louie,” Sarah said, and Chuck winced.

“Well, that’s gross,” he said. “But you do realize you’re meeting a full onslaught of Buy More workers. We make strange people say, ‘You’re weird.’“

“You’re a Buy More worker and I like you just fine,” Sarah pointed out.

“Yeah, but it’s been well-established that you may need your head examined. Maybe that fall off a building did some damage?”

“I liked you a hell of a lot before the fall, too.”

Chuck opened his mouth to rebut that, seemed to remember the make-out session on their date, and shut his mouth. “Point.”

Sarah pulled on the blouse, wincing when the move made her shoulder ache, and began buttoning it. She was grateful to have the use of her left hand back. It had been a week and a day since her dive off of the Petersen Building, and Ellie insisted she wear the sling for one more day. She’d given in only because it was easier. For all intents and purposes, she was under house arrest until they left for Vegas on Wednesday. “Thank you. Why are you so nervous, anyway?” she asked.

“Possibly because it’s bad for my reputation if the Buy Morons send you running for the hills? I mean, I haven’t even gotten that second date yet.” Chuck smiled.

Sarah considered crawling into his lap and letting him know just how far beyond a second date they were.

The doorbell rang, halting any plans she might have made to make Chuck forget his own name. “That’ll be them,” he said, pushing reluctantly to his feet. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

It was Morgan at the door. He’d started using the front door after an incident at the Morgan Door that he and Sarah had mutually agreed to never tell Chuck about. It mortified Sarah to know that Chuck’s best friend had seen her in less clothing than he had.

He looked a bit pink in the face as he held out the bottle of wine he’d brought for the planning session. “Two Buck Chuck, nice!” Chuck said, taking the bottle.

“Say what now?” Sarah asked.

Chuck showed her the bottle. “It’s delicious.”

“Two dollar wine is delicious?” Sarah asked.

“Oh, the snobbery, it stings,” Chuck teased, gesturing for Morgan to come in. Chuck led the way into the kitchen to dig out wineglasses. “Did you manage to convince everybody?” he asked Morgan.

“Uh, yeah, about that…”

Sarah, about to reach for a wineglass, paused. Next to her, Chuck seemed to agree, since he said, “Morgan,” in a warning tone.

“Yeah, Dale down at the spy shop isn’t free, Chuck. I’m sorry, I tried, but he’s got an espionage weekend with the buddies and can’t join our team.” Morgan licked his lips. “And I didn’t want to mention the money as the only way to bring him onto the team, as it’s not right. He should want to be here.”

“Oh.” Sarah could see the wheels in Chuck’s head working as he digested that. “That’s fine, then.”

“And there’s one other thing. Uh, to get all of us the weekend off…I might have had to tell Big Mike.”

Sarah’s eyes widened. “Who is Big Mike?” she demanded.

Chuck was staring at Morgan, his eyes wide and his cheek twitching. It wasn’t precisely dislike, but it was definitely disbelief. “He’s our boss,” he told Sarah, still staring at Morgan.

“And he wants in,” Morgan finished. “I had to promise him a cut of the reward money to get him to keep his mouth shut, but the good news is that he’s got his own car, so that’s one more for the caravan to Vegas, _and_ he’s giving everybody the weekend off.”

“Can he be trusted?” Sarah asked, looking nervously from one friend to the other.

“We can bribe him with Danishes,” Morgan said. “He’s good people, and a great motivational speaker.”

Still, Sarah glanced over at Chuck. After a few seconds, he inclined his head slightly: Big Mike could be trusted.

“That brings our crew up to you, Sarah, me, Ellie and Awesome, Jeff, Lester, Big Mike, Skip Johnson, Harry, and Anna Wu,” Morgan rattled off. “I think it’ll be a good crew, and having Anna there will really add to our diversity, don’t you think? We’re all about equal opportunity here, right? Now, if you excuse me, I think I’ll go wash my hands.” He started to slink off toward the bathroom.

“Whoa, hold it,” Chuck said. “Did I hear you right?”

“Hmm?” Morgan looked far too innocent, which Sarah had already learned wasn’t a good sign.

“You listed eleven people,” Chuck said suspiciously. “We only said ten on the crew, tops.”

“Well…”

“Wait a second. Harry? Harry Tang? Are you _kidding_ me?”

“What?” Sarah asked. “Who’s Harry Tang?”

Chuck let out a long groan. “Explain,” he said to Morgan, his tone brooking no arguments.

Morgan sighed and seemed to deflate. “He overheard me talking to Big Mike about it.”

“Morgan, I specifically told you to be careful—”

“I was! I swear I was, man.” Morgan shoved both hands through his hair and pulled so that his eyebrows rose to a comically surprised position. “I had the door to the office closed and everything. But you know Harry, Chuck! He was listening at the doorknob and he threatened to go to the cops about you and Sarah unless we let him be a part of the crew, so what could I say? I said yes.”

“Damn it,” Chuck swore, thumping the side of his fist against the countertop in frustration. “He’s going to cause trouble.”

Sarah forced herself to breathe. Having this many people know about her secret, this many people that could blackmail her, or more importantly blackmail Chuck, made her want to start shaking. But that wouldn’t do any good right now. “I’ve worked with people I can’t stand before, we’ll get through it,” she said, keeping her voice calm for Chuck’s benefit. “If we think he could blow the con, we’ll adjust his job to make it a lot harder for him.”

“I’m not worried about that.” Chuck frowned. “I just really hate this guy.”

“Think of it this way,” Sarah said, touching his arm to make him look at her. “If this works, he’ll probably have enough money to quit the Buy More. You won’t have to deal with him after this.”

“I guess,” Chuck allowed.

“He’s not coming tonight,” Morgan said, finally picking up one of the wineglasses. “Big Mike’s got him working.”

“Thank god.”

“But seriously, Chuck, we’ve got to keep him in on the loop, or he’ll sing like a canary.”

“We will.” Chuck looked like he had been forced to swallow bitter medicine. “I really do hate that guy.”

Sarah set her wineglass on the counter and stepped in to wrap her arm around Chuck, resting her head on his shoulder. “It’s going to be OK,” she told him.

He smiled down at her, and she could tell it took an effort. “You don’t know that.”

“Sure I do, I know everything.”

“Ha,” Chuck said.

“When is everybody else getting here?” she asked Morgan. She had baked a pan of lasagna out of sheer boredom earlier, and now had it warming in the oven, and Chuck had brought home a salad and breadsticks from a local deli. Since Ellie and Devon would be wrapped up at Westside all night, it was a skeleton crew: themselves, Jeff, Lester, and the new recruits. Skip Johnson was bringing their booth location; Chuck had gotten a hold of floor plans for the Mercurian Hotel, the site of the con. And they would have a meal and plan how to con conmen.

“Ten minutes or so,” Morgan said. “Jeff and Lester were finishing up at work, and Big Mike’s picking up cannoli for all of us. And Anna…”

Sarah’s eyebrows went up. Did Chuck know that his best friend had a crush?

“Anna has her MMA lesson, so she’ll be late,” Morgan finished, the sigh almost inaudible in his voice. “She’s promised to teach us any new moves she might learn tonight.”

“Well, that’ll certainly be educational,” Chuck said.

Sarah clicked her glass against his. “What is it they say? You can never be overeducated.”

“With this group, I sincerely doubt that.”

  


* * *

  


“Educational” hadn’t begun to cover it. The first thing that they would have to work around, Sarah discovered, was that Skip Johnson never spoke. He wasn’t mute, she knew, since she had heard him laugh on more than one occasion, but he didn’t talk.

Instead, he texted.

The others had had years to learn to deal with his foibles, but it was still bizarre to Sarah to have the conversation pause for a minute as everybody checked their phones to see what Skip had said. In contrast to Skip, who was built a bit like an anemic fishbone save for that shock of hair, was Big Mike, who definitely earned his name. Everything about him seemed larger than life: he was a hefty man, with a booming voice and an even larger presence. Every time he spoke, Sarah half-expected a southern Baptist chorus to pop up behind him and shout, “Amen!” He of course dwarfed Anna Wu, who was even shorter than Morgan. Sarah didn’t mind her so much. Apart from a strange sense of bloodthirstiness, Anna had seemed okay. Jeff and Lester… it was probably strange, but their antics now seemed normal to her, which was somewhat frightening.

She learned to be grateful, in retrospect, that Harry Tang hadn’t been able to make the first meeting. Chuck’s dislike of the little man didn’t seem so exaggerated after Sarah met him on the second night of planning. It only added to her unfortunate exhaustion, as from the minute the nerds set foot in the house the second night, they were on a roll. She was so tired of things going over her head and references she would never understand that by the time Chuck escorted the stragglers out of the apartment on the second night of planning, she was practically asleep on the couch. He came back in to find her burrowed into a sweatshirt of his that she had stolen from his closet and in twilight sleep.

Chuck stopped just inside the front door. “No _Firefly_ marathon tonight, huh?” he asked, smiling.

Sarah made a noise that was more of a sleepy grumble than anything else.

“Guess not,” Chuck said. “You going to move and let me have the couch or are you—oh.” He broke off when Sarah hugged the couch pillow tighter. “Guess that’s a no, too. You want anything? Water?”

Sarah opened one eye to stare balefully at him.

“I take it you want me to just let you sleep,” Chuck said. He leaned over her, possibly to kiss her forehead, but Sarah anticipated that. She waited until the last second before she snaked a fist out and grabbed a handful of Chuck’s shirt to yank. He toppled—and landed on her. The impact jarred her shoulder, but she didn’t care. She was too busy giving Chuck what she considered a much more appropriate good night kiss.

“Good night,” she said when they surfaced for air. She gave Chuck another sleepy smile and turned her head, intending to fall asleep.

Chuck spluttered. “What? Are you kidding? That’s so mean!”

“What?” Sarah asked, turning her head back.

“You can’t kiss me like—like _that_ , and just say good night!” Chuck pouted, his lower lip actually sticking out.

Sarah arched a brow. “I can’t?”

“There are rules about this sort of thing. Detailed and specific rules. In the Geneva Convention, you know!”

“There are?”

“They’ve got a whole section devoted to it.” Chuck nodded sagely, nearly hitting her ear with his chin. “Apparently French women are a tease.”

“I’m not French.”

“Even so, French women are the reason that section exists, and so are you.”

Sarah smiled. “Prove it.”

“I could do that. Or I could…” Chuck trailed off, his head dipping. A second later, Sarah gasped. She forgot all about being tired, not with Chuck doing _that_ with his lips and tongue. She moaned a little and locked a leg around his waist, her fingers already working the buttons of his Nerd Herd shirt. It wasn’t hard to feel Chuck’s smile against her skin as they shifted, both attempting to get comfortable on the couch and closer to each other.

She had just wiggled free of her own shirt when they heard the approaching footsteps from the courtyard, as well as the tired voices.

“You have got to be _kidding_ me,” Chuck said, resting his forehead on her collarbone. “They couldn’t have waited another hour?”

“We could always go to your room,” Sarah said, toying with his hair. She was constantly fascinated by the shapes the curls made.

Chuck looked tempted, but he sighed. “I have really got to get my own place.”

He sat up and handed Sarah her shirt from the floor. It took them a moment to disentangle themselves, but by the time Ellie and Devon came in, Sarah was once again curled up on the couch, her feet resting in Chuck’s lap. They had the TV on to some random movie on the Sci-Fi channel.

“Planning meeting went well?” Ellie asked, looking around at the empty pizza boxes and beer bottles they’d yet to clear from the room.

“Very. We’ve got the basics covered, and we’ll start the prep work for the booth tomorrow. How was work?”

“Long,” Ellie said.

“And yet, awesome,” Devon said. “Any pizza left?”

“We saved you some. It’s in the fridge.” Chuck leaned forward to shut the TV off before he extricated himself from beneath Sarah’s feet. “You still want the couch?” he asked her. He smiled when again, she hugged the couch pillow to herself. “All right. Good night, then.”

This time, she let him kiss her forehead.

  


* * *

  


Even though they had enough to keep them running around town from the time the alarm clock went off until they fell back onto the mattress at the end of the day, spent from exhaustion, cabin fever began to set in. They had mutually agreed that Sarah wouldn’t leave the apartment, to minimize the chances of her getting spotted around town. At first, it hadn’t been so bad. The apartment was a nice size, and Sarah liked to think that she was a patient woman, but after four or five days with the same walls and people around, she was beginning to slowly go mad.

So she threw herself into the work, which there was a surprising amount of. Apparently being a geek meant having lots of _stuff_. They had created a fake video game for their booth, one they were hoping to launch and find investors for, which meant that Chuck and Skip were constantly busy on various computers around the house, rendering graphics—whatever that meant. They had Morgan scurrying all over L.A., collecting the costumes they would need for the con to work. The nerds insisted on authenticity, which meant that it took quite a bit of work to find all of the accessories, and several long phone calls to Chuck to quibble over the details.

While Anna, Jeff, Lester, and Devon handled the supplies for the booth, under the watchful eye of Ellie, Sarah handled logistics. She had to find hotel rooms for eleven people, and transportation to Vegas for all of them. Grouping together depending on who was supposed to know whom proved an interesting challenge, made harder by the fact that she herself couldn’t stay at any of the hotels that housed casinos. She couldn’t risk showing her face near a casino until the absolute last minute, thanks to the security software present everywhere.

When she had all of that figured out, she joined the booth assembly line. Chuck and Morgan picked out her costume a couple of days into the planning session, arguing back and forth until they came to a mutual decision that she could tell neither really liked. She had expected something revealing, perhaps slutty, but it turned out to be a little mannish, complete with combat boots and everything.

“Why am I named after a coffee chain?” had been her only question about the outfit. At least it had been a better outfit than those that Morgan, Harry, Awesome, Skip, and Lester would be wearing, which looked like huge white bug carapaces. They also looked like they might suck to wear in the middle of the Las Vegas desert in the summer. Thankfully, the convention would have air conditioning.

“Are you doing OK?” Chuck asked the morning before they were supposed to leave for Vegas. He was getting ready for work, as he had the morning shift.

Sarah, who had been staring at the wall, wondering just how much strength it would take to punch a hole through it and escape, jerked in surprise. “Yeah,” she lied. “I’m fine.”

“You sure? You kind of seem…”

“I’m _fine_ ,” Sarah said again.

Chuck almost managed not to look wounded, and Sarah immediately wanted to kick herself. “Sorry,” she said.

“No, I’m hovering. I get it.” Chuck finished tying his tie. “We’ll know how it ends in a couple of days, either way,” he said.

He was missing the point, but Sarah didn’t correct him. She was nervous about the con, true. She was nervous about having the most amateur crew on the planet, she was nervous about going to Vegas, she was nervous about sleeping with Chuck and even more nervous about never getting the opportunity to do even that. But mostly, she was just tired of being inside.

She managed to hide most of that as she smiled and kissed him good-bye. They had worked through most of the night to finish the supplies at the booth, and Chuck had almost completed the false demo they would be playing on the monitors, but there were a lot of little things that needed to be handled before they traveled to Vegas, so she spent her day wrapped in trivialities. They would send Connor and his crew the hand-off location at midnight that night, giving him enough time to make it to Vegas but not enough time to prepare overmuch. They had elected that Chuck would do that from inside the Farraday cage in the Buy More back room. Sarah had no idea what a Farraday cage was, but she trusted Chuck when it came to computer stuff.

She logged onto his computer, as he had shown her how, and began to surf through, idly clicking links in hopes that a video of a ninja cat might make the ennui and frustration disappear. When that didn’t work, she began to work on the items on her check list. She took a break for lunch. She paced the house. She stared at the wall.

_It’s only a couple more days, and tomorrow we’ll be in Vegas…where I’ll get to stare at a brand new set of walls. I really should never go to prison. I’d be terrible at it._

Idly, she picked a bit of lint off of the knee of her jeans and wondered if people had ever actually died of boredom.

It was only one o’clock in the afternoon. Chuck still had two hours on his shift. She looked at the burn phone sitting on the edge of his desk, picked it up to call him. He always had something entertaining to say.

Instead of dialing his number, however, her fingers tapped from memory. She frowned down at the phone’s read-out. She had forgotten that she had an answering service set up, one that only her father and select people knew about. Her finger hovered over the “Send” button. Scopes hadn’t been on the trusted list, but then, he hadn’t exactly been on the trusted list for her bank accounts either. Did he know about her voicemail box? Was he monitoring it?

She was on a burn phone, Sarah reminded herself. She’d just check, and hang up quickly.

With a trembling thumb, she pressed “Send.”

She listened to the options, wondering if the greeting voice had always spoken that slowly or if it was just her paranoia. It took a small eternity to reach the end of the automated greeting and access her mailbox.

“You have one new message,” the voice chirped at her.

Sarah froze before she clicked the option to play the message, wondering who on earth would be wanting to contact her.


	19. Sarah’s Second Test

“Right, and Carly is who, again?”

Sarah folded another pair of pants and set them on the correct pile of clothing. She had originally escaped into Chuck’s room to be alone, but now that he was home from work and seemed to want company, she didn’t have much choice. There weren’t many other places in the apartment she could go. She raised an eyebrow at him. “You haven’t met her, but you might have seen her. She was at the bar with me when I ran into you?”

She could tell by the way that Chuck’s brow crinkled that he couldn’t remember Carly’s face at all. She folded another shirt. “Weren’t you at the bar with Connor and all of them?” he asked.

“Yes, why?”

Chuck didn’t look at her. He was plucking at the knee of his work pants, sitting on the edge of his bed while she folded the laundry. He had been home for half an hour, and she could see the weariness dragging at him, which was more than understandable since they had spent the past week prepping for Vegas. “So she knows Connor, too?” he asked.

“The con world is actually pretty small. Everybody knows everybody else. Or of everybody else.” The thought made Sarah want to frown. Did everybody know how easily she had been tricked by now? It was a good thing she had made Chuck a promise not to return to that life if their con worked. Then she would never have to look most of her ex-colleagues in the eye and face their scorn.

 _That is, assuming this con works._ And if it did, she could probably play it off like she had intentionally let herself take the fall to get a bigger slice later on. If she wanted to, though she doubted she would, as she had made a promise to Chuck that she was out of the con world once and for all if this went well. Of course, the con would have to work first.

She really hoped it would. She had ten other people that could get into serious trouble, all because of her.

“I don’t think Carly and Connor have ever worked on the same crew,” she went on when Chuck didn’t say anything. “They both tend to be crew-leaders.”

“I don’t think you should go,” Chuck said.

Sarah set the shirt she had been about to fold down on the lip of the basket. Though she was only a couple of feet away from Chuck, she wasn’t sure she had heard him correctly. He had his face still cast toward the floor. “Say what?” she asked, tilting her head inquisitively.

Chuck finally looked up. There were circles under his eyes, just like the ones she had under her own. Neither one of them had been getting much sleep with all of the prep work. “Is it really such a good idea, going to meet this Carly?”

 _We’re tired_ , Sarah reminded herself, so she made sure to keep her voice even and calm. “Yes, it is. She’s my friend. I left her a message the night the others betrayed me, and she got back in touch. Of course I want to see her.”

Chuck didn’t get the hint. “But don’t you think the timing’s a little bit _too_ convenient? Like, if she really wanted to help you, wouldn’t she have gotten in touch sooner?”

“She’s been on a con.” Sarah shrugged. It felt nice to be able to do things like shrug again without her shoulder screaming bloody murder at her. “It’s pretty standard operating procedure for her. Carly goes on a job, she drops off the face of the earth, and when she resurfaces, she gets back in touch.”

“But it’s still weird. We’re sending the drop-site info tonight,” Chuck said. “And today, out of the blue, your friend decides she really wants to see you again. I mean, if that’s the case, that’s a huge coincidence.”

“Sometimes life is a coincidence,” Sarah said, quoting the first half of something her dad had always said to her. _Sometimes life is a coincidence, and it’s our job to make sure it works for us_. She attempted to put a light, teasing tone to her voice and leaned down to kiss Chuck. “You’re being a little paranoid, don’t you think?”

Chuck didn’t respond to the kiss. Confused, Sarah stepped back to see that he looked both mutinous and worried. “I don’t think it’s paranoid at all,” he said. “Why does Carly want you to come alone, if it’s not a set-up?”

“She never said anything about wanting me to come alone,” Sarah said. She could feel aggravation beginning to grow in her middle. It was nice of Chuck to try and protect her, and she appreciated everything he had done for her, but she was going to scream if she spent another hour inside the apartment. “I just said I wanted to meet her alone since it’s Carly and I don’t want to be seen with anybody from the current crew. Just in case.”

“Oh, so you _do_ think she’s going to try and set you up?”

“No, I think my private life is private, and I don’t want Carly knowing more about that than she should.”

“And you still think going to see her is a good idea?” Chuck rose to his feet and crossed to the other side of the room, apparently giving in to some need to move around. “Alone?”

“Yes, alone. Is it too much to want something from my life to stay private, on both sides?”

“Right now? Yes.”

Sarah took another step back. “I beg your pardon?”

Chuck’s jaw firmed. “I don’t think it’s a good idea,” he said, not explaining at all, “your going out alone right now, especially to meet somebody Connor knows. It’s too risky.”

The thought that Carly ever working with Connor was so absurd that she nearly had to laugh, despite the crankiness and annoyance. She took a deep breath. “Chuck, it’s fine. I’ve been taking care of myself for a long time now, I know how to protect myself.”

“But why risk it?”

“Because I want to see my friend!” _Because I’m tired of sitting in this apartment and freaking out, and because I want to see a familiar face, and a face I’m not putting in danger and therefore am responsible for_!

“Your friend that you don’t even trust enough to be seen around me with?”

“She’s still my friend,” Sarah said.

“You have weird friendship standards.”

 _Says the guy whose best friend doesn’t even knock before he comes in the window_? Sarah glared.

Chuck seemed to realize he was on a bad track, for he sighed and shoved a hand through his curls. “It can’t wait until we get back from Vegas?”

“No,” Sarah said. “It can’t.”

Chuck folded his arms over his chest. She didn’t need years of instincts honed by the con to see that his stance was definitely combative. His voice hadn’t risen, but there was a steeliness underlying it. “Why not?”

“Because I don’t know if she’ll be here when I get back. Carly doesn’t stay in one place very long.” _And I don’t know if_ I’ll _be here after Vegas. If the smallest thing goes wrong_ … She forced herself not to think about it, to focus on her current problem, which was Chuck. She had never expected to meet up with opposition over this, of all things. Carly Ross had been her friend since the early days, right after Jack had been thrown in prison and Sarah Walker had gone on the run. Or rather, Jenny Burton had. Their friendship wasn’t perfect by long shot, but it was something, and it was familiar, and she needed somebody who understood the fear and pressure, somebody that wasn’t Chuck. She forced another deep breath. “It’s not a big deal, Chuck, really.”

But Chuck still looked mutinous. “You should stay here. We need to go over the plan—”

“We’ve gone over the plan a thousand times! If we don’t know it by heart by now, we never will.” Sarah threw her arms up in exasperation, ignoring how it made her bad shoulder throb mildly, and pushed her hands through her hair. “It’s not going to matter if I sneak out for an hour to meet up with a friend or not by now, Chuck. We’re all ready to go. Everything’s prepped, and there’s nothing more we can do until we get to Vegas. Unless you’d like to spend more time around Harry Tang.”

She saw that dart strike true, and Chuck grimace. “Still, there might be something…”

“There’s nothing, Chuck, and you know it. It’s going to be fine. I’ll go, I’ll meet up with Carly, and then I’ll come right back.”

“I still say it’s a bad idea.”

Her temper finally snapped, and Sarah whipped around to face Chuck. “Why the hell are you so against this?”

“Because it’s dangerous!” Sarah scoffed, and Chuck’s face only darkened. “It is! You’re a wanted fugitive, you’ve got no business going around willy-nilly meeting up with friends you can’t be sure you trust!”

“Willy-nilly?” Sarah’s eyebrows went up even as she crossed her arms over her chest. “Really? And I trust Carly, thank you very much. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t be going.”

“Why would you trust her? She cons people for a living!”

“So do I!”

“That’s different.”

“How? How is it different?”

“It just is!”

Sarah just raised an eyebrow. She was glad to have practiced the trick in the mirror as a teenager—it had been one of her father’s signature moves—now, for Chuck flushed. “It is,” he insisted a second time, stabbing an accusing finger at her. “You’re always going on about how you can’t be trusted, but you can be and—”

“And if I were trying to con you, I would tell you exactly the same thing,” Sarah said.

“What? No, you wouldn’t—”

“If I were _trying_ to con you? I would. That would be the trick to play with you, play the poor damsel in distress, and appeal to your heroic side. And you’re such a sweet guy, it wouldn’t even be that hard.” Sarah scowled and suddenly wanted to kick something. She hated these darker parts of her nature coming to light around Chuck, but it seemed like they just couldn’t help themselves.

Chuck’s face hardened even farther. “Are you?”

“Am I what?”

“Trying to con me.”

“No, I’m not.” This time Sarah gave into the temptation, and kicked the leg of his desk chair. It didn’t do anything but hurt her foot. “It would be much easier if I were, but I’m not. And if you trust me, then you’ve got to really trust that I know what I’m doing.”

“Like you knew what you were doing with Connor?”

Every part of Sarah went instantly cold. It wasn’t a physical temperature change, she knew, but it felt like she had been plunged into a tub of ice so fast that there was a flash of pain, followed by an interminable numbness. For two seconds, she felt nothing but cold and numb. And then the anger kicked in.

“Is that really,” she said, “all you think of me?”

Chuck, to his credit, seemed to realize exactly what he had said. “I didn’t mean it like that.”

“Then how did you mean it.” She almost made it a question. Her voice didn’t sound like her, didn’t sound like her at all. It was much too cold, much too impersonal, even to her own ears. “How did you mean it, Chuck?”

Chuck pinched the bridge of his nose. “We’re tired, and we’re stressed, and we’re saying things we don’t mean to say,” he said. “Look, it’s been a long week and…”

“I understand.” Sarah picked up the burn phone she had been using all week from the dresser and stuffed it in her purse. And then she headed for the door. Her ears were actually beginning to burn, which should have been a welcome relief from the cold.

But it _hurt_.

It hurt to hear her own fears that she was incompetent or had somehow grown incredibly stupid from Chuck’s lips, as he was supposed to be the optimist, the hopeful one, the pure one of the two of them. She lengthened her stride, wanting nothing more than to get out and away before any more “meaningless” things could be said.

Unfortunately, Chuck apparently didn’t understand the beauty of letting a woman storm out, as he chased after her, out into the hallway. “Wait! Where are you going?”

“Out.” The word sounded just as cold and frosty as the rest of her. She fought the urge to close her eyes and curse when she saw Devon and Ellie sitting on the couch, trying so hard to look nonchalant that she knew they had heard every word of the argument. The humiliation, it appeared, would never end. She paused by the front door and took a deep, bolstering breath. “Devon. Ellie.” Now her voice was measured and composed. “If you’ll excuse me.”

“Wait!” Chuck followed her out into the courtyard, depriving her of the pleasure of slamming the door in his face. There was actual fear on his face, which might have struck a chord with her had she not still been so frozen. “Are you coming back?”

At that moment, Sarah longed to tell him, “No,” and just stomp away. She did the next best thing: she left without saying a word.

###

An hour later, the fury had finally burned off the ice coating her, leaving her thoughts clear enough so that she could think about their fight—and it wasn’t even really a fight, more like a tiff or a spat or something that seemed like a made-up word that had a lot less meaning until Sarah had lived through one—without wanting to punch something. She’d walked awhile, until all the infuriating signs of threatening tears had vanished, and then she had taken a cab to a spot a few blocks away from where she was supposed to meet Carly. She had turned off her cell phone after the first four or five calls from Chuck, as the constant calls and texts weren’t helping matters.

Some part of her warned her that he was just worried, that he had had a point. The rest of her was still too hurt to care. The hurt sat inside her gut, like a bruise that wouldn’t heal.

To make matters worse, Chuck’s paranoia had rubbed off on her. By the time her meeting with Carly drew near, Sarah had already cased the four blocks around the bar thoroughly; she knew every egress point and short-cut in the area, all of the good hiding spots and everything. Half an hour before she was supposed to meet Carly, she was set up in a deli across from the bar, sipping a coffee that only argued with her upset stomach, and watching for any signs. She would have been careful, she knew, even if Chuck hadn’t pointed out the danger. She hadn’t been born yesterday. She would have been smart, and cautious, even if Carly would never sell her out to the likes of Connor.

Chuck had made her doubt her friend. And even if he had a point, damn him, she hated him for that. It only made her ire grow as she sipped her coffee and glared at the bar.

Seeing Carly slip into the bar alone was like a balm to the bruise. But even so, Sarah waited a full ten minutes, watching for signs of any cops or Mafia connections—if Scopes was telling the truth about Connor—that might be watching for her. It hurt her heart to doubt one of her only friends.

When she was as certain as she could be that Carly hadn’t set up an ambush for her, she slipped across the street and into the Hair of the Dog bar. It didn’t appear to be much other than a sports bar, judging by the number of games on TV screens, but it was mostly empty, and it would give them a bit of anonymity.

Carly’s eyes widened the minute Sarah walked in. “Oh, my god!” She threw her arms around her friend. “Oh, god, I didn’t know if you’d gotten my message, and I heard what happened, and everybody’s been so worried, but you’re OK?”

“Mostly,” Sarah said, her resolve cracking a little. She pushed down on yet another infuriating urge to cry. Her friend looked exactly the same, was all she could think. It was ridiculous to think Carly would have changed a great deal, seeing as it had only been a couple of weeks since she’d last seen her, but she still felt relief. “I was a bit banged up in the escape attempt, but I’m OK.”

“Thank god,” Carly said. “Where the hell have you been hiding? Nobody’s seen you!”

Sarah moved a shoulder as they pulled up stools at the bar. She angled hers to where she could watch the door. “I’ve got a place. It’s…temporary.”

“Oh.” Carly waved at the bartender to place their drink order. “Do you want to talk about what happened?”

“Honestly, it’s a little…” Sarah sighed and trailed off. “Can you give me any news? Any idea where Connor and his gang of cretins are now?”

“They went to ground when you did.” Carly shook her head slowly. “It’s all everybody’s been able to talk about. Even Scopes went into hiding, as much as his BO would let him.”

“He’s easy to track down if you know how,” Sarah muttered.

“They got away with everything?” Carly asked as their drinks were set in front of them. “All of your savings?”

“I had some back-ups,” Sarah said evasively. “It’s not much, but I’m getting by.”

“I feel so awful that I was out of town when it happened.”

Sarah cursed Chuck’s suspicious voice at the back of her head, but she still had to ask, “Oh? Where?”

“Nashville.” Carly wrinkled her nose, a clear opinion of that city. “Country music scam, friend of mine needed help.”

Though she knew it wasn’t fair, Sarah couldn’t help but think, _A friend of yours needed your help_ here.

“But if I’d known what was going to happen, well, for one thing I would have warned you.” Carly frowned and sipped her drink. “How’s your dad handling it?”

Sarah’s hand stilled as she reached for her drink. “I haven’t heard from him.”

“Oh,” Carly said. “Well, what are you going to do?”

Sarah hesitated. How much to reveal, how much to conceal? Should she say anything about the plan for Priest-Con? But what if Carly was truly in cahoots in Connor? Or what if Connor’s…connections got to Carly?

“Honestly, Car, it’s better if you don’t know,” Sarah said.

Her friend grabbed her wrist with a suddenness that made Sarah jump. “Sarah, are you in trouble?”

Sarah wasn’t sure how to answer that. If the con worked, on the very slight chance that Chuck’s plan worked and they were successful, she might not be, but Sarah had been in the world too long, had seen too many cons fall apart and too many people go to jail, to be anything but completely honest with herself. And she didn’t have Chuck’s optimism and hope to bolster her right now, so she just shrugged.

“I can help you,” Carly said, not letting her wrist go. Her gaze was frank, the face of honesty and truth—except, and Sarah felt sick to hear Chuck’s voice in her head again, Carly was a conwoman. She lied for a living. She could be lying now. “Sarah, I can help. I’ve got a team I’m putting together in Florida, I’m willing to let you in on it, you can take part of my cut, and I’ll vouch for you with the others there. We’ll get away from the west coast and never look back. Never have to worry about Connor Morton or any of his slimy connections. We could be on a plane tonight; I’ve got a friend that owes me a few dozen favors. I’ll pay for new papers for you, and you can pay me back on your own time, no interest or anything.”

Even a week before, it would have been music to Sarah’s ears. It was exactly the solution to all of her problems: Sarah could get away from Los Angeles and all of the law issues she had run into there, she would have a new identity, work, security. She would be working alongside Carly, one of her only friends in the world. And most importantly of all, nobody would ever know that Chuck and his friends had broken the law for her. There would be nothing tracing her to them but their own memories. She could send money to buy off Jeff, Lester, and Harry Tang, and there would be nothing to get them in trouble.

They would be safe.

But Chuck’s face floated to the front of Sarah’s mind, how excited he had looked when he had described his plan, the stone set to his jaw when he had told her his terms: she would leave the con game. She would stop stealing from people. She could see the way he smiled when he teased her about this majestic second date of theirs.

She closed her eyes briefly now and shook her head. “I can’t, Carly.”

“Why not?”

“I just…” Sarah trailed off and picked her drink for the first time. But she didn’t toss it back like she longed to. Instead, she swirled it so that the ice formed a tiny eddy in the middle of the plastic cup. “I’ve got other plans.”

“You didn’t get religion, did you?” Carly asked, something akin to horror in her voice.

Sarah half-smiled, though there was no humor in her expression, and sipped her drink. “Not quite, no.”

Carly was silent for a long, thoughtful moment before she gasped and pointed at Sarah, almost in a shock. “It’s a guy!” she said.

Instantly, Sarah had to fight down the urge to panic. “What? No, it’s not. That’s just silly.”

“Uh-huh.” Carly’s expression told her the shorter woman didn’t believe her for a minute. “It’s a guy. Sarah Walker didn’t find religion, she found love. And in the city of—holy crap!” The last bit was a yelp that the entire bar had to have heard. Carly’s eyes went round as saucers. “It’s the computer guy from the bar!”

Anybody else would have at least spilt her drink at that, but a lifetime of conning occasionally came in handy. Sarah forced her panic inward and turned toward Carly, the perfect picture of confusion. “What computer guy?”

Her act was almost successful; she saw Carly falter, unsure, before the other woman said, “Uh-huh, if that’s how you want to play it, I’ll buy it. For now.”

Sarah didn’t thank her, though she wanted to.

Carly tossed back half her drink. “So you’re really leaving the game? It’s for real this time?”

“It was supposed to be for real after the Boston Techtronics job,” Sarah said, frowning. “I meant what I said. I’m only still in now because I just have one little thing to do. I made a promise…to a friend.”

“I hope it works out for you.” Carly finished off her drink and sighed. “I really do, Sarah. With the guy and with the…one little thing.”

“Thank you,” Sarah said.

“Sure you won’t change your mind and come to Florida with me?”

“I’m sure. I’m good here.” Sarah put as much conviction into her words as she could, answering both the asked question, and the question Carly hadn’t asked: will you be safe?

“I’ll look you up when I’m in town next?”

“I hope you will. I’ll leave my answering service on for you if you ever want to get in touch.”

“I’ll definitely do that. I want to meet the guy who claimed the heart of Sarah Walker.”

“I wouldn’t go that far,” Sarah said, somewhat nervously, though she knew exactly when she was lying to herself, thanks to a lifetime of training. Still, she thanked Carly for the drinks, as her friend had been kind enough to pay, gave Carly a hug, and watched her friend go.

She had made her bed, she thought as she headed for the back entrance of the bar. She had turned aside every lifeline available to her, all based on the faith and optimism of a guy she hadn’t even known a month.

###

Chuck’s bedroom light was off when Sarah sneaked into the courtyard of the apartment complex, which perplexed her until she saw the soft flicker of light against the living room windows that told her somebody was watching a movie. Since Ellie and Devon went to bed rather early, she figured it was probably Chuck out in the living room. Even so, she let herself in very quietly—and nearly dropped her purse at the sight of Morgan standing in the middle of the living room, pointing a gun straight at her.

“Oh, god!”

Morgan likewise yelped and lowered the gun. In the dim light from the movie on the TV screen, she could see that it was one of the sci-fi guns they had been collecting all week for the con. Chuck had called it a blaster.

“You scared me!” Sarah said, putting a hand to her chest in an attempt to get her heart started again.

Morgan glowered. “You scared me! Sneaking in after hours like a criminal!”

Sarah didn’t point that technically, she _was_ a criminal. “I didn’t want to wake anybody!”

“Oh.” Morgan subsided and set the blaster back on the couch. “That makes sense, yeah.”

“Where’s Chuck?”

“Said he was tired.” Morgan sat back down on the couch. “He fell asleep in the middle of the _Thomas Crowne Affair_ , can you believe that?”

Sarah, who had never seen _The Thomas Crowne Affair_ , answered that no, it was quite unbelievable.

“We were having a Faye Dunaway marathon,” Morgan went on. “Well, actually, it was a heist movies marathon, but I thought that Warren Beatty kind of looked like Chuck and you kind of look like Faye, so we turned it into a Faye Dunaway marathon instead. But Chuck didn’t even make it two movies! Popcorn?” He offered the bowl to her.

Though Sarah hadn’t had dinner, she declined politely. “I think I’m actually going to…go check on Chuck.” If he were truly asleep, she would have to come back out and hang out with Morgan, but if not, she wanted to apologize before she lost her nerve. She had sent him a text after her meeting with Carly, and his reply had been short but simple: _Waiting for you at home whenever you’re ready. Be safe_. From then, though, they hadn’t talked.

“Oh,” Morgan said. “OK. Good night, Sarah.”

“Uh, good night.” Sarah tiptoed past Ellie and Devon’s room and knocked softly on Chuck’s door. There wasn’t an answer, so she took a deep breath and gently eased the door open.

The room beyond was dark, but the rectangle of light from the hallway let her see enough to know that Chuck had crawled on top of the covers, still dressed in his after-work getup, and fallen asleep. Sarah let out the breath she had been holding. Apparently, her apology would have to wait for the next morning, and she was going to be watching movies with Morgan starring her doppelganger. She’d had stranger evenings…maybe.

Before she could close the door, however, Chuck stirred. “Sarah?” The word was a sleepy mumble.

Sarah had to clear her throat. “I’m here,” she said, stepping into the room.

It didn’t look like Chuck was fully awake, but he still reached an arm out toward her. Sarah needed no other prompting to kick off her shoes and climb onto the bed, settling into the space he had vacated, his arm around her. “You came back,” he mumbled before he fell back to sleep.


	20. Sarah the Lucky

Moving seven nerds…one of whom communicated only in text form and another of whom was hated by everybody…two doctors, one electronics chain store manager, and herself across the desert was such an interesting chore for Sarah that she determined very quickly that if she never had to do so again, it would be far too soon.

She didn’t think about the fact that they would make the return trip in less than three days. She just couldn’t be sure her sanity would persevere.

The first problem was in selecting who rode with whom. Skip Johnson couldn’t drive because that cut him off of his main form of communication, Lester didn’t have a driver’s license, she was carrying her Stacee Kemp paperwork and didn’t want to chance getting pulled over, and Harry Tang spent most of the trip pontificating that they had to keep _him_ happy, therefore he expected to be chauffeured around in style, which almost made Sarah seat him in Jeff’s Creepy Stalker Van. Thankfully, cooler heads prevailed, and it was decided that Harry Tang would ride with Skip Johnson and Anna Wu in Big Mike’s car.

They might have stored all of the equipment they needed in the Creepy Stalker Van, but Chuck had pointed out that they really didn’t want to trust Jeff and Lester with everything they needed for the con and no supervision. So instead, Sarah, Morgan, and Chuck had decided to risk death and infection and ride in the van, leaving the backseat and trunk space in Ellie’s SUV to carry all of the equipment they needed.

“Are you sure you don’t want to switch places with Skip?” Chuck had asked at the beginning of the ride, before they had left Los Angeles.

“I made Jeff put Bronwyn in a cage,” Sarah replied, “and I threatened to cut his share unless they cleaned the van. It will be fine.”

It hadn’t been. The overpowering scent of Pine Sol had threatened to make her throw up at a rest stop halfway to Vegas, and it was uncomfortably hot in the back of the van even with the air conditioning blowing. She had eventually given in to what she figured was probably a mini heat coma and fallen asleep leaning against Chuck. It had to be unbearably warm for the nerd, but he hadn’t complained. He had simply played his video game…which he called a PSP for reasons Sarah didn’t understand and hadn’t asked about…all the way to Vegas, with her asleep on the one side and Morgan playing a similar console on the other.

They had dropped Sarah off at her hotel first, and she had been relieved to find out it hadn’t been as roach-infested as she had feared. Sure, it was a little too close to the motels of her youth that she had spent her adulthood trying to work away from, but the room at least looked pretty clean, and they had messed up her reservation, so they had put her in a suite instead.

Now, two hours after she had shooed everybody off to the hotel they were all staying at, the one where the con was taking place, she sat on the sofa, propped her feet up on the coffee table, and prepared to while the evening away with movies. She had showered off the stench of the Creepy Stalker Van, but since it was Vegas and there were cameras everywhere, she had nowhere to go, so her feet were bare and she was wearing jeans and one of Chuck’s T-shirts. He was supposed to be keeping an eye on everybody…they were under no illusions just how much trouble their crew could get into with the temptations of Vegas so close…so she doubted she’d see him tonight. She would make do with whatever was on TV, a microwavable dinner, and trying not to think about the fact that they hadn’t gotten a chance to talk about their fight the night before yet.

Knocking on the door made her tense, but she heard Chuck call, “It’s us!”

Sarah blinked to see most of the crew standing outside her room. Without waiting for an invitation, they piled in and immediately made themselves at home, Chuck bringing up the rear. “They wanted to see you before the big night of fun,” he explained in an undertone.

Sarah tilted her head at him. “Why are you keeping your hands behind your back?”

“Because I brought this.” Chuck produced a bottle of champagne.

“Isn’t it a bit early to be celebrating?”

“Celebrating that we made it to Vegas in one piece? Never! Who’s got the glasses?”

Morgan had apparently brought those. As drinks were distributed, Sarah looked around. Jeff and Lester had gone all out for Vegas; the shorter man was wearing a feather boa, and Jeff had a cap with two cans of beer on it. Anna appeared to have dressed up as somebody who worked on the seedier side of Vegas, though Sarah wasn’t going to say anything. She liked the purple leopard-print high heels, though. Jeff, Lester, Morgan, and even Skip Johnson were all wearing matching blue and white jersey shirts.

“Team Cha…rah?” Sarah asked, not sure she was reading the shirts right.

“Team Chuck and Sarah! We’re like a real sports team, only we steal money instead of bases,” Lester explained.

Sarah exchanged a glance with Chuck. “I figured Vegas was the one place they could get away with it and blend in perfectly,” he said, shrugging, “so I let it go.”

“We were going to go with ‘Walkertowski,’“ Lester went on, “but that was too long. Cha-rah! Cha-rah! Cha-rah!”

Sarah raised her eyebrows as all of the others started to join in the chant, pumping their fists. A toast was made to “every miserable mile of I-15, and that poor squirrel Jeff swears he didn’t hit with his Creepy Stalker Van,” and everybody drank. Harry Tang was said to be exploring Vegas on his own, and Big Mike had booked a show, but everybody else was hitting the strip for a night of prolonged fun.

Just as Sarah asked where Ellie and Devon had gone, another knock sounded at the door. “Your ride’s here, guys,” Chuck said.

“Wait, your ride?” Sarah asked as everybody picked themselves up off of the couch and other available surfaces. “You’re not going with them?”

“Nope.” Chuck didn’t explain at all, though, as he trooped out the door with the others, who all bade her various forms of “Good night.” She heard one final slurp from Jeff’s beer-can hat before they vanished, and Chuck reappeared, holding a bag of take-out food. “I asked Ellie to stop on the way and get our dinner, I hope you don’t mind that we ordered for you. It’s just burgers and some stuff.”

“That’s fine,” Sarah said, mystified. “Are you staying here?”

“I figured, you’re stuck here, I might as well keep you company. Devon and Ellie promised to keep an eye on the team.”

“You realize you’re leaving Devon and Ellie to deal with Jeff. Alone. In Vegas.”

“Sounds like the beginning of a bad movie, doesn’t it?” Chuck smiled and began to unload the bag onto the coffee table.

Sarah’s eyes widened as the items just kept coming. In addition to burgers, there were also tubs of fries, different dipping sauces, a Styrofoam container of salad, wedges of pie, a bucket of cold slaw… “How much exactly do you think we’re going to eat?”

“Remember, it’s Ellie who picked it up. She likes to overfeed people.”

“Very true.”

Chuck took a deep breath, the only warning she had before he straightened abruptly. “Look, I want to apologize,” he said, in a rush. “I never meant to imply that you were incompetent or anything last night, and I really don’t know what came over me, but I’m sorry.”

“It’s OK,” Sarah said.

“No, it’s not OK, you’re a grown woman and I’ve got no business ordering you around.” Chuck frowned. “So I’m sorry.”

“Well, I’m sorry, too. I shouldn’t have stormed off like that.” Sarah scowled down at the food. “I spent the whole meeting being suspicious of Carly, and I hated it, but I can’t really tell myself I would have been suspicious without your warning. It didn’t lead anywhere, but I owe you. You were looking out for me, so thank you.”

This time, Chuck gave her the slow smile, which took ages to fully overtake his face and made her toes curl. “Hey, what are partners for? So we’ve officially made up, right? Our first fight, come and gone.”

“No broken bones or anything,” Sarah agreed.

“You want to sit down and eat? There’s a _Three Stooges_ marathon on one of the local channels, I scoped it out from the other hotel, and we want to eat before the food gets cold.” Chuck settled in on the couch.

Sarah, however, didn’t move. “I bet it would be good cold,” she said.

“What?”

She smirked and finally moved, ignoring the nerves that boiled low in her belly. She didn’t sit on the couch. Instead, she put her hands on Chuck’s shoulders and climbed into his lap. He gave her a surprised look. “And I bet it would be delicious. After.”

“After wh…” Chuck started to say before she kissed him. There wasn’t the same urgency in this kiss as there had been in all of the previous sessions: her shoulder was healed enough not to bother her, they had sent everybody they knew for a night on the town, and for once, it was only just the two of them. No Morgan around to walk in on things, no Ellie, no Buy Morons, nobody. Chuck broke the kiss to give her a dazed smile. “ _After_ ,” he said. “Oh, I get it now.”

“Give me your phone,” Sarah said, smiling back. While he dug in his pocket for the phone, she attacked his neck with her lips and teeth, making him gasp, and gently bit his ear.

“What are you…”

Sarah powered the phone off and fumbled to set it on the coffee table behind her. “No interruptions. None.”

“Agreed.” Chuck even went so far as to knock the room phone off its hook as he pulled her to her feet. It was a study in physics and catastrophe to move toward the bedroom without breaking liplock and while shedding clothing. She was pretty sure Chuck’s shirt landed on the lampshade by the sofa, but she didn’t bother to check. They didn’t quite make it to the bedroom yet; she bit Chuck’s ear again and he pushed her against the wall by the bedroom door, turning what had been playful into something a great deal more heated and urgent than before. His hands roamed all over her, possessively and yet somehow still wondering.

And of course, with Chuck, there was a pause every few minutes or so for him to just stop and give her that heart-melting the smile, the one that said, are we really doing this? In response, she whipped off his belt. That seemed to answer his question.

He groped for the doorknob with his free hand, the other hand still roaming, tangling briefly in her hair, pulling her closer to him with insistent tugs, until they were all but mashed together. Every inch of Sarah’s skin felt like it was aflame, but instead of heat and agony, there was only heat and pleasure. She laughed a little against Chuck’s mouth as they stumbled into the bedroom, tripping over each other in their haste, and nearly running into various pieces of furniture. How they made it to the bed in one piece, she would never know, but she didn’t care. She wormed free from under Chuck to peel out of her jeans, allowing only one brief thought to leak through the pleasure. _At least I had enough foresight to wear the cute underwear even though I didn’t think I’d get to see Chuck again today_!

Chuck’s groan practically reverberated through her. Grinning, Sarah hooked a leg around his waist, encouraging him. They’d gone down to bare skin, save for Chuck’s pants and their underwear, and even as Chuck felt around for the covers, their hands continue to roam, exciting, dark, dangerous. It wasn’t enough. Sarah pushed up on an elbow, urging Chuck to move faster. She levered herself so that she was completely wrapped around Chuck, and shoved, intending only to wind up on top for now, to give Chuck better access to get her bra off…only, she misjudged exactly where they were on the bed.

Her gasp turned into a scream as they went tumbling off the edge of the bed, blanket and entangled limbs and all. Chuck let out of an “Oof!” as she landed on top of him. He groaned, and this time it wasn’t from pleasure.

“Oh, god, are you OK?”

Chuck winced, looking pained. He still had a hand tangled in her hair, and her legs were still wrapped through his. “No, I’m fine. My spleen broke my fall,” he said, panting.

Since it didn’t look like he was seriously hurt, Sarah couldn’t stop the grin. “Are you calling me fat?”

“Fat? I wouldn’t say fa…ooph! Ow!” Chuck doubled forward, laughing, when Sarah socked him in the gut, so that he nearly bopped Sarah’s chin with his forehead. “Vicious beast!”

“You sure know how to sweet-talk a girl,” Sarah said, and before Chuck could protest, she lowered herself and captured his lips with hers.

After a couple of minutes, Chuck broke the kiss. Sarah shivered to feel his hands toying with the clasp on her bra. “Shouldn’t we, ah, get back on the bed?” he asked, his voice oddly husky.

Sarah gave him a puzzled look. “Why would we need to that? Here’s perfectly fine.”

“Are you su…”

Sarah shut him up the only way she knew how.

###

Later, much later, they hadn’t made it onto the bed, though Sarah would swear later that wasn’t entirely her fault. She had tried to move Chuck after their first, energetic session, but he had insisted on lying on top of the blanket on the floor. Or, as he put it, “I’ll move someday. In about fifty years, maybe. Fifty years sounds good. My ears are ringing, are your ears ringing? Also, I’m pretty sure I saw the kill screen from _Missile Command_.”

“I must not have been doing something right if you’re seeing things from video games,” Sarah said when she caught her breath.

“You know that _Missile Command_ is a video game?” Chuck rolled over on his side to smile at her. “Five minutes ago, I was pretty sure you were the most perfect woman in the world, but now? Now I’m positive.”

“Are you?” Sarah laughed. “Well, that works. I feel pretty perfect right about now.” She felt more than perfect, actually. Her body felt loose and almost liquid, and she had a desire to echo Chuck’s “maybe move in fifty years” idea. Except that she hadn’t eaten since they had stopped at a questionable roadhouse diner halfway between L.A. and Las Vegas, and she hadn’t exactly trusted the food there enough to eat heartily. When her stomach growled, she felt the blush rising from the tops of her toes.

Chuck just laughed. “Yes, ma’am,” he said, rising to pull on his pants again. “Stay there, don’t move until you absolutely have to.”

When he came back in, though, Sarah had dug out another one of his stolen T-shirts out of her suitcase and was sitting up with her back against the foot of the bed. He gave her a mock moue of disappointment, but set the tray of food on the floor, dropping down next to it with a sigh. They tore into the food as though it had been days rather than hours since they had last eaten, and everything that they hadn’t talked about earlier, with the weirdness of the fight hanging over their heads, came tumbling out.

“Skip sent me texts the whole time,” Chuck said, laughing as they recounted Harry Tang’s antics on the way up from L.A. “Every time we passed a cop, Harry ducked down in his seat. They started spotting fake cops up ahead and turned it into a drinking game.”

“Oh, that’s awful,” Sarah said, though she laughed.

“We owe Devon and Ellie about ten million favors,” Chuck went on, polishing off the cold slaw. Sarah had already made inroads onto the salad and finished one of the burgers. “They were going to go see a show tonight, but I convinced them they wanted to ride herd on the gang.”

“ _How_?”

“I, ah…” Chuck cleared his throat. “I may have had to delve into Ellie’s junior high history to dig up some…”

“You blackmailed your sister?” Sarah gave him a shocked look. “Charles Bartowski!”

“It was for a worthy cause! And it’s not like you have any reason to complain!” Chuck paused, and inexplicably, a brief look of worry crossed his face. “You, uh, don’t have any reason to complain, do you?”

“Maybe some rug burns,” Sarah said, though the blanket had spared her that humiliation. She grinned at Chuck’s immediately contrite expression. “I’m kidding. I have absolutely no reason to complain.”

“Oh.” This time it was Chuck’s turn to blush.

“But maybe we need to go another round,” Sarah said, tilting her head thoughtfully. “Just to make sure that wasn’t an aberration. You know, do a field test or something.”

“So what you’re saying is you want to have sex again?” Chuck asked. “But this time for science?”

“Sure, yeah, for science.”

###

How on earth she ever heard the knocking, Sarah didn’t know, since the motel had surprisingly decent water pressure and the things Chuck’s lips were doing to her neck didn’t leave a lot of room for rational thought, but eventually the repeated sound broke through. She lifted her head, which felt heavy, away from the wall of shower tile and blinked heavily. Chuck blinked back at her, one eyebrow going up. His impatient look seemed to say, _A little busy here_!

“Did you hear that?” Sarah asked.

Chuck groaned. “You didn’t just say that.”

“Say what? How are you not hearing that?” Without Chuck distracting her, the knocking came through even clearer. It sounded hurried and frantic.

“I hear it, I hear it.” Reluctantly, Chuck reached around Sarah and shut off the water, groaning a little. “It’s just, if we were in a horror movie, one of us is bound to die right now because you just asked, ‘did you hear that?’“

Sarah snatched her robe up from the peg and tossed Chuck one of the towels hanging off of the rack. “I know the motel room is a little scary, but do you really think we’re in a horror movie?”

“I’m just saying it’s a horror movie cliché, and after everything we’ve been through, now would be a horrible time to die. Not saying I wouldn’t die a happy man right now…a _very_ happy man, for the record…but in case we ever _do_ wind up in a horror movie, and I’m not saying that’s the case, either…”

“Then somebody with a chainsaw is going to come through that door?” Sarah asked, wringing out her hair in the sink quickly.

“Or a gun, at the very least,” Chuck agreed, wrapping the towel around his waist.

They froze at the same time as his words registered. A manic killer on the loose probably wasn’t a big fear for either of them to have, but the FBI would have guns…and a reason to be pounding on the door.

“Stay here,” Chuck said, and before Sarah could protest, he’d vanished out of the bathroom, closing the door behind him. She put a hand over her heart as though that could possibly quell the way it thundered against her chest. It wasn’t the FBI. They had been careful. They had covered their tracks well. There was no way that Connor or any of his connections had found them, so there was no way the Feds could track them down.

Careful not to make any noise, she very gently eased the bathroom door open an inch to peer out beyond, but she could see nothing but the bedroom. Should she stay in the bathroom? Should she risk it and go into the bedroom to see who was at the door? She could escape easier out the bathroom window, but it wasn’t like she would be going very far in a bathrobe.

Before she could fully make up her mind, however, Chuck appeared, one hand securely hitched around his towel. “We have a problem,” he said.

###

“And you’re sure he’s not dead,” Sarah said, frowning a little as she crouched by the motel sofa. She had an absurd desire to poke at the pile on the sofa, but she refrained, figuring that she really wasn’t up to catching any strange and incurable diseases this evening. “Like, we’ve checked to make sure he’s breathing?”

The nerds standing all around the sofa shuffled their feet and mumbled things. Finally, Sarah’s cell phone beeped. A new text from Skip: _do u have a handheld mirror_?

“We don’t need a mirror,” Lester snapped, finally breaking. “He does this sometimes. We just forgot that he’s not allowed to mix vodka with gin, tequila, scotch, and bitters!”

“Oh, is that all?” Chuck asked, sarcastically.

“It’s a very specific combination, and it’s always bye-bye Barnes. And this isn’t even the worst he’s been this week, let alone this year! Some of the service calls I could tell you about…”

“OK, Lester, we got it,” Chuck said.

Sarah straightened. After dealing with Jeff and Lester during the Boston Techtronics meeting, she knew well enough to trust Lester when it came to Jeff and his strange habits. That the same man was now in some sort of catatonic state on her motel room sofa was worrying, but not as bad as having to deal with a dead man on top of everything else.

“Where are Awesome and Ellie?” Chuck asked, looking around at the cabal of nerds. Skip and Morgan had their hands in their pockets and had the grace to look ashamed. Skip had a bright red stain across the Team Charah shirt, and Morgan was wearing Mardi Gras beads, very sedate compared to Lester, who had somehow managed to procure a boa, a leopard-printed coat, a top hat, and a cane. Oh, and Sarah had no idea and no desire to ask, a monocle.

“We lost ‘em,” Morgan said, evidently taking point for the group. “Early on. We spent all night looking, Chuck, man, but I don’t think Ellie wanted to go to ‘The Knotty Schoolgirl’ with us, so she may have ditched us.”

“Imagine that,” Chuck said. “And Anna? Where’s Anna?”

Skip’s text message: _With Ellie and the Captain_.

“Well, that’s a relief. Nobody ended up in jail?”

Several shakes of the head no.

“Restraining orders?”

Again, negatives.

“And nobody is several thousand dollars in debt?”

“We came close, but the ball landed on black,” Morgan supplied helpfully.

“Let’s keep it that way. I’ll call you lot a cab, and you can wake Jeff up while you wait for it to get here.”

Skip’s text message: _Uh, how? He’s in a coma_.

“Yeah, he’s not going to wake up for at least eight more hours,” Lester said. “Trust me, I’ve seen this before, and you do not want to try and explain that to a cab driver, even a Vegas cab driver.”

“We can’t just throw some sunglasses on him and go all _Weekend at Bernie’s_?” Morgan asked.

The idea was vetoed quickly; even if the cab driver wasn’t made suspicious by Jeff’s comatose state, the employees at the hotel where they were staying would be. It was proposed that they send Lester, Morgan, and Skip back to the hotel and leave Jeff on the couch, but Lester didn’t want to be separated from his “hetero life mate” in this moment of need. Somehow, Lester’s protests led to Morgan, Skip, and Chuck hauling the unconscious man into the corner while Sarah pulled out the sofa bed and Lester used the spare linens from the closet to make something of a bed out of the room’s recliner.

By the time they escaped to the bedroom, which was still a mess from their earlier exertions, Sarah was almost in a daze. She just stood by the bed, stunned.

“I know,” Chuck said, seeming to read her mind. He looked just as worn out. “It’s like we already have kids. No, not kids. Toddlers.”

Sarah blinked, hoping against hope that she had heard that wrong. “Kids?” she asked.

“I guess we could consider it good practice,” Chuck went on, peeling off his shirt and throwing it in the corner, out of the way of the mess.

Sarah’s mind went absolutely blank.

Chuck hadn’t finished. “I mean, I figure it can’t be long,” he said as he began picking up the blankets from the floor and shoving them back onto the bed in some semblance of order. “We’re already in Vegas, we can get married this weekend and then when we get back, I can ask Big Mike if the assistant manager position is open and start bringing home the bacon while you get to work setting up the house, and then, who knows? A couple months down the road, maybe there will be a bun in the oven and…oh, god, if you could see your face right now.”

And he burst out laughing, startling her. Sarah’s heart jolted and kicked into high gear, and she collapsed on the side of the bed. “You jerk!” she said, half-laughing despite the spurt of pure terror the thought of having kids… _kids_ , as if she wasn’t messed enough for herself, let alone a miniature copy!…that shot through her. “You’re insane!”

Chuck couldn’t reply, as he was laughing too hard.

“Psychopath,” Sarah said, running her hands over her face. Her heart was still pounding. “You actually had me going there for a minute!”

“Are you kidding? A bun in the oven?” Chuck wiped a tear of mirth away. “I don’t even know your favorite flavor of ice cream, remember?”

“It _was_ strawberry,” Sarah muttered, crossing her arms over her chest.

“Aw, really?” Chuck grinned at her.

“Was,” Sarah told him.

“Uh-huh. Fickle of you, to change flavor preferences so much.”

“Yeah, imagine that,” Sarah said, and shrieked when Chuck pounced at her, pinning her to the mattress. She squirmed a little to get more comfortable, snickering when his eyes nearly crossed. “Don’t tell me you’re already ready for another round?”

“We were interrupted in the shower, remember? It doesn’t count.”

“Oh, well, if it doesn’t count…” Sarah pulled Chuck down to her, intending to pick up right where they had left off.

The loud sound of a throat clearing through the door made both of them freeze a hairsbreadth away from each other, followed by snickering, and a shouted, “Are you two having sex in there?”

“Yes,” Chuck said, closing his eyes even as Sarah felt the blush heat him up all over, “ _just_ like having kids.”

Sarah glanced over at the closed door and narrowed her eyes. “That’s locked, right?” she asked.

“Yeah, why?”

“No reason,” Sarah said, and closed the distance between them.


	21. Sarah the Princess

Sarah wasn’t quite sure what had woken her, though she immediately felt off. Chuck wasn’t a sleep cuddler, but he was a close sleeper, usually curled in right next to her. When Sarah woke up alone, the sheets next to her cold, she was surprised. She blinked at the alarm clock on the nightstand, which read 3:03 a.m., before it truly occurred to her that maybe she should look for Chuck and make sure everything was OK.

More curious than concerned, she slipped out of bed and pulled on panties and one of Chuck’s T-shirts. They might have convinced the Nerd Herd to sleep at their own hotel tonight rather than crashing at Sarah’s again, but she wasn’t taking any chances.

Her worries were unfounded. The living room/kitchenette was empty of all nerds, including Chuck. She frowned. Had his gone back to his hotel? Without leaving a note? That didn’t seem like him. He was usually the considerate one, leaving notes or sending texts, while she was so unused to having people rely on her that she forgot. Maybe he _had_ sent a text, and she hadn’t heard the cell phone chirp. She turned to go check, but as she did so, she spotted the front door. It was slightly ajar, held open by the security latch, so that a splinter of orange light filtered in.

 _A-ha_.

Sure enough, Chuck stood outside, leaning on the railing that overlooked the parking lot from the second floor. He looked so lost in thought that she almost let him be, but the door creaked, and he turned. He had a beer bottle dangling from his fingers by the neck.

“Sorry,” he said. “I was hoping not to wake you.”

Sarah had to clear the sleep rust from her throat before she could reply. “No worries, I was just curious. Something on your mind?”

“Nothing.” Chuck looked down as she joined him by the railing. “You’re not wearing any pants.”

“They’re just legs.”

“I guess you would know. You’ve got a mile of them.”

Sarah didn’t bother to point out that even though it was Sin City, the motel was practically dead at this time of the night. She counted two room lights on, and she and Chuck were the only ones out on the catwalk. She leaned her head against Chuck’s shoulder, still partially asleep. It took most of her willpower not to let out a mighty yawn. “Worried about tomorrow?”

“Well, today, really.” Chuck sipped his beer. “We’re taking seven nerds, my sister, and her boyfriend into a con and attempting to trick three seasoned conmen out of millions and, oh, yeah, robbing them at the same time. And the scariest part about that is that I’m more scared of letting seven nerds loose at Priest-Con than I am about facing the conmen. At least they won’t have guns, which is more than I can say for security.”

Sarah kept her face very still. She deliberately hadn’t mentioned Connor’s connection to the mob. “At this point,” she said, pushing the back of her hand against her mouth to stop the yawn, “the plan is set and it’s too late to change anything. There’s no point worrying about it.”

“But what if it goes wrong?”

Sarah didn’t answer. The nicest option was that she would be on the run for the rest of her life, and it only worsened from there.

“I mean, I know the entire situation is crazy, and it happened freakishly fast, but I don’t care about that.” Chuck looked away from the parking lot and at her. Could he tell how fast her heart was beating? Probably not. “I feel like I’ve known you forever and at the same time, not at all, which is great because it means there are thousands of things to discover. And if we screw up today, I’ll never get that chance. When I was a kid, I used to watch these movies, you know: old school action movies where the hero could do anything. Fight the bad guy, save the day—”

Sarah found her voice. “Rescue kittens out of trees?”

Chuck smiled. “Of course. And every time, there’d be a romance. Larger than life stuff, big sweeping kiss at the end, you understand.”

“I do.”

“And I don’t know, I used to think it would be so cool to get to be that guy. But you don’t do a lot of adventuring and saving the world when you work at a Buy More.”

“Tell that to the people whose computers you fix.”

“Ha. I’m sure.”

“Hey.” Sarah bumped Chuck with her hip. “You’ve got it all now. We’re going to save the program for Boston Techtronics, con the bad guys. Hell, you’ve even got the girl, as the lingo goes.”

“If tomorrow—today—works.” Chuck pushed his free hand through his hair and took another sip of the beer. “I never really thought about what happens to the hero in those movies if he loses everything. How scary it is to be in his shoes. It adds a whole new perspective to it.”

“You could look at it that way,” Sarah said, taking the beer away from him and setting it out of reach on the railing, “or you could look at it this way: you’ve got a great team, an even better plan…and I’m not wearing any pants.” She eased between Chuck and the railing, one hand sliding up Chuck’s shirt so that she could rake her nails along his back, gently. She felt him shiver as she pulled him down to her. She wasn’t as with words as Chuck was—not when the words meant something—so she tried to pour as much of herself as she could into the kiss. It wasn’t flash-fire urgency, but something much slower, more pleasurable and more tortuous because of it. Chuck kissed her back, shifting nearer to her and wrapping an arm around her, perhaps subconsciously to keep the railing from digging into her lower back.

When he lifted his head, though, he was frowning. Sarah felt her heart jolt, but Chuck said, “I know what you’re trying to do.”

“Figure out exactly how many steps there are to the bedroom and how many before I lose my shirt?” Sarah asked, keeping her look innocent.

Just like she knew it would, Chuck’s expression went slightly glassy. _It’s too easy sometimes_. “You’re trying to distract me from my very valid concerns with sex.”

“So?”

“Valid, Sarah. Very valid.”

Sarah sighed. “I can’t tell you it’s going to be OK, Chuck. I’m scared, too.”

“Really? Because you don’t look it.”

“Well, that probably has more to do with the fact that I’ve been conning people since before I could walk or talk.” When Chuck gave her a surprised look, Sarah sighed. “My dad used to put me in a stroller and would steal cash out of the purses of the women who came to coo over me.”

“Oh. Cold.”

“So I’ve got a little bit of a poker face,” Sarah said.

“A little bit?”

“What do you want me to say?” Sarah withdrew her hand out from under Chuck’s shirt so that she could fold her arms over her chest. “I’m scared. I like my life in Burbank, as unorthodox as it can get, and if tomorrow or today or whatever goes wrong, I’m going to lose that because I’ll either be on the run or in prison, and even worse than that, you might get in trouble, too.”

Chuck’s face darkened briefly at that.

“But we’ve been committed to this the second you walked into the Boston Techtronics. It’s too late to jump ship now. So what’s worrying about it going to do?” She had to stand on her tiptoes to kiss Chuck this time.

“Uh-huh.” Chuck idly rubbed the side of his thumb against the skin of her lower back.

“It’s three a.m. pre-con jitters,” Sarah said. “Everybody gets them. But really, there’s so much…else we could be doing right now.”

That seemed to do the trick, as Chuck’s face cleared into a smile. “I’m being really insane right now, aren’t I?” he asked. “I’m freaking out when I could instead be having sex with a beautiful woman.”

“You said it, not me,” Sarah said, shrugging.

Chuck glanced over at the hotel room door. “You ever figure out how many steps it is to the bedroom?”

“Nope. But we can find out.”

It was a futile gesture; by the time they reached the fifth or sixth step, Sarah forgot all about how to count.

###

“Wow, you two are sure _relaxed_ this morning,” was the greeting from Morgan when he ambled into the hotel room the team was using to get ready the next morning. “Have a good time playing cards all night?”

Though Chuck colored a bit, Sarah looked up from where she was tying on her second combat boot, completely deadpan. “We didn’t have time what with all the sex.”

This time it was Morgan that went bright red and seemed to stutter. Skip, coming in behind him, seemed to be suffering the same affliction. Sarah glanced at Chuck in confusion, and he sighed. “When a hot blonde uses the word ‘sex’ in regular conversation, it tends to break nerds,” he explained. “Probably best to avoid that from now on.”

“Ah.” Sarah tucked her laces into her combat boot and carefully bloused out her pants leg like the picture on the table showed. She had donned most of her costume already—the odd tank top that they had had to alter so that the straps went cross-wise instead of horizontal, the gray jumpsuit. She had a set of dog-tags hanging around her neck, and her hair pulled back into a ponytail. She would don the jacket when they headed downstairs and into the convention. At the room’s table reviewing the convention map for the fifth time, Chuck was dressed almost identically to her. He had his jumpsuit jacket tied around his waist so that he wouldn’t misplace it in the mess that had become the hotel room.

Getting eleven people ready for a convention was a messy business, Sarah was discovering. Parts of costumes lay like carcasses across the floor and all furniture, waiting to be claimed. Nerds had been racing in and out of the room for the past half hour in various states of undress and makeup.

The door opened again. “Donuts!” Devon announced, holding up a pink bakery box.

Everybody in the suite came sprinting. Devon had to leap back out of the way quickly to avoid the carnage of a group of hungry nerds with a sweet tooth.

Sarah smiled at Chuck when he handed her a chocolate éclair, taking a jelly donut for himself.

“You can never really be sure what the food situation at a con might be like,” Chuck explained in an undertone, dropping down to sit on the arm of the couch next to her. “Always best to fuel up as much as you can.”

“Uh-huh,” Sarah said, watching Lester and Harry Tang bicker over who got the bearclaw.

Ellie who, unlike the others, wasn’t dressed as a nerd but rather in something approaching casual Friday wear, came up. “Are you sure that I’m the only one that can work the booth as the designer?”

“You can wear the oddly revealing wartime costume and switch places with me if you want,” Anna offered, looking up from her coffee. The guys must have feared her, Sarah figured, for she held a sprinkled donut and didn’t look any the worse for the wear.

Ellie paused. “No thanks.” Anna’s costume would be even shorter and more revealing on her, as the brunette had several inches on Anna. Sarah didn’t blame her.

“Relax, El, you’ll be fine. We went over all of the details you would ever need to know, and Anna will be right there if you have any problems.”

Ellie nibbled on her lip, looking doubtful.

“We’ll be all right, babe,” Devon said, coming up. He handed her a coffee. Unlike Ellie, he wore his costume for the day; they had dressed him as the main character from their fake video game because, as Chuck had put it, “Why _wouldn’t_ you want to play a game starring Captain Awesome?” He had a mix of a military uniform and armor, and Chuck had requested that he avoid shaving for a couple of days in order to get a good scruff going on. “Our jobs are the least important today, anyway.”

“Every job is important in the con,” Sarah said. “Are you three ready?”

They confirmed that they were, and that they had all of the gear. Even so, Chuck double-checked the bag they were taking into the con, and nodded. “Remember, don’t acknowledge any of us,” Sarah said as Chuck handed the bag to Devon. “If you need to talk to us, be like Skip and send a text.”

A second later, her phone buzzed. _Message from Skip_ : :) Sarah looked over her shoulder and smiled back.

“Good luck, guys,” Chuck said, and they ambled out of the hotel room.

The con lines wouldn’t open for another hour, giving the people inside the room more time to get into their costumes. Sarah longed to voice the question: wouldn’t it be smarter to keep the costumes separate and let everybody get into them in their own rooms, where there would be far less chaos. However, getting ready for the con together seem to be some kind of nerd rite of passage. She wasn’t going to interfere. Every crew-leader had his or her quirks. This appeared to be one of hers, now.

“Hey, hey, hey, what’s this?” Chuck’s outrage made her look up. He was holding a white chest armor plate—one of the Stormtroopers’ armor plates, Sarah corrected herself. There was a starkly silver streak of duck tape across the whole thing. “What happened here?”

Morgan raised his hand. “Marshmallow battle.”

“What?”

“Apparently even marshmallow battles aren’t as safe with Stormtrooper gear as you think. But don’t worry, I ran out to the Rite-Aid across the street and got something to fix it.” Morgan held up a small white bottle.

“Wite-Out?” Sarah asked. “Isn’t that going to stand out?”

“They still sell that in liquid form?” Chuck asked.

Morgan ignored his best friend. “Unconventional and weird fixes are just part of the con experience, Sarah.”

Even though he sounded like he knew what he was talking about, Sarah glanced at Chuck for confirmation. She got a shrug in return.

“Is that your armor?” she asked.

“Yeah, why?”

“I want you to switch with Harry Tang.”

This made the other man look up in indignation from his tug-o-war battle with Jeff over the bearclaw. “What!”

“You’re switching chestplates with Morgan, Tang,” Chuck said.

Harry Tang let go of the bearclaw and drew himself up very much like an outraged rooster. “I will not stand for this,” he hissed as Jeff wandered boozily away, victory in hand. “This is playing favorites!”

“Or first come, first served,” Lester pointed out without looking up from his game on his phone.

Tang looked vindicated. “Or that! You expect me to walk around all day looking like an idiot to begin with, but now you want to add broken armor to it? No. I refuse. I won’t do it.”

“It’s not playing favorites,” Chuck said, and Sarah suspected he had clenched his teeth together. Thankfully, the entire time they had been in Vegas, he had been with her, which meant that nothing could have really exacerbated his dislike of Harry Tang. Except now it appeared to be back in full force. “It’s simple logic. Morgan’s part of the con is that he needs to blend in, and that’s going to be harder with him running around with a whited-out chestplate.”

“Hey, I happen to think this looks pretty good!” Morgan said, looking up from his ministrations on the armor.

“Not now, Morgan,” Chuck said.

“I don’t think you understand how this works,” Harry said, his face turning an odd, mottled red that Sarah found fascinating despite her dislike. “ _I’m_ the one you have to keep happy here. That is how blackmail works!”

“By this point, Tang,” Morgan said, “you’re just as guilty as the rest of us.”

“I am not! I haven’t done a single thing wrong—we haven’t even pulled the con yet. But I’ll have no problems going to the police and telling them all about how you’ve been hiding _her_!” Harry Tang pointed an accusing finger at Sarah.

Though she could feel Chuck shaking with rage, Sarah nearly had to smile. Every crew had a power player, and in some ways, it was nice that things never changed. She had to put a hand on Chuck’s arm to keep him from actually leaping at Harry Tang.

“Your math skills suck,” she told Harry Tang.

That was clearly not the answer he was expected, given that he blinked stupidly at her.

“Look around you,” Sarah said, rising to her feet, languidly. Calmly. In control. Every bit, she thought, Jack Burton’s con-woman daughter. “There are ten of us pulling this job. And only one of you.”

Harry had to crane his neck to look up into her face. It was petty and small, but Sarah felt a stab of triumph at that. “So?”

“So who are the police going to believe? Nine respectable citizens…” Sarah trailed off with a glance at Jeff and Lester, and had to correct herself. “Well, respectable for the most part. Or…little old you?”

Harry sputtered and the mottled rage increased. But all he did was glare. “This is not the end of this,” he hissed at her, and snatched the chestplate from Morgan’s hands, ignoring the bearded man’s “Hey!” in protest. He stalked out. He really was quite the vile little man, Sarah couldn’t help but think. She couldn’t blame Chuck at all for his dismay that Harry was on the team, even if he did fulfill the necessary position in the crew of being the power player.

“Man, I hate that guy,” Chuck said into the ensuing silence.

“He has his uses.” Sarah cleared her throat and looked around. “Jeff, is your make-up done?”

“Big Mike’s hogging the spirit gum,” Lester put in for his friend.

“Well, tell him to _share_ , then,” Chuck said, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Lester, go help him with it and then get into your armor. You two should have been getting ready twenty minutes ago. You know how hard the forehead ridges are to do.”

Lester scowled at the taller nerd, but obligingly reached over and snatched the bearclaw from his friend’s hand. “C’mon, bubala,” he said, leading Jeff from the room with the donut very much like a rabbit with a carrot and a stick.

“Twenty minutes, people!” Chuck called. “And then it’s go time!”

###

Even though Morgan and Chuck had told her all about what to expect at a con—with helpful text message asides from Skip—Sarah wasn’t prepared for Priest-Con. At all. No amount of preparation on the planet earth could have made her ready, she was positive.

The first thing she noticed was the smell. It was…unusual, to say the least. An odd mixture of too-much-cologne, unwashed body odor, plastic from the various costumes, mingling with the stale reminder of cigarettes, since the convention was taking place one floor up from a casino, though the event itself banned smoking. There was a strange amount of color from the various costumes, though most of the nerds not in costume wore what seemed to be a uniform of black T-shirts with witty sayings or logos, and blue jeans. Sarah and Chuck went through the security line alone, separated from their group since they would all be coming in waves—Jeff and Big Mike together a few people ahead of Chuck and Sarah, with Lester, Morgan, Harry, and Skip following as Stormtroopers five minutes later.

Each one of them carried two of the thumb drives shaped like frogs. Only one of them carried the software key.

“So that’s Priest, huh?” Sarah asked, craning her neck to get a good look at the twenty-foot by twenty-foot poster of the video game character posted on the wall over the convention doors. Matt Priest, for whom Priest-Con was named, did not appear to be a terribly large man, despite the size of the poster. He wore all black—black trousers, a black shirt, black trenchcoat, black fingerless gloves—save for the square of white at his throat. He carried a silenced pistol in one hand and his face was in shadow.

“That’s Priest,” Chuck said.

“Do you like the video games?”

“They’re OK. The graphics are pretty good, the user interface is well-done. The story…” Chuck shrugged. “I’m not always the biggest fan of antiheroes. But at least there aren’t any zombies.”

“You don’t like zombies?” Sarah asked, surprised.

“No.” And Chuck proved it by glaring at a posse of the undead a few places behind them in line.

Chuck wasn’t the only one who had a thousand things to discover, Sarah thought.

They made it through security without any trouble and showed their passes to the appropriate people, receiving a high-five for their costumes from somebody who was apparently a fan of _Battlestar Galactica_. “Told your our costumes were brilliant,” Chuck said as he slipped his pass around his neck. “Where to first?”

Sarah gave him the _Are you kidding me_? look. He grinned. “OK, OK, let’s go steal millions of dollars and we’ll skip the booth about the new Rock Band game until we’ve done that. Got it.”

“Thank you,” Sarah said primly, checking her watch. They had an hour and a half until the appointed meet-up time. They had emailed the location and time to the email she had given Scopes, and they were now inside the con. There was nothing left to do but get to their appointed places and wait.

Even so, moving through the con proved harder than she had thought it would be. If she had been by herself, it might not have been a problem, but it turned out Chuck’s fears from the night before weren’t so unfounded as she had hoped. The con itself, with all of its booths and flashing lights and roaming costumed nerds, turned Chuck into an ADD head-case. He had to stop and see every other booth, to crow over how cool everything was, and how he needed to come back later with Morgan and check out this video game and such. Sarah figured out quickly exactly why Chuck had said to give them over an hour of lead time.

Still, Chuck’s nerding-out stops provided her with an opportunity to keep an eye out and make sure that they weren’t being followed. With all of the masks roaming around the place, and the thick crowds, it wasn’t easy to tell, but she was reasonably sure that Terrence, Scopes, and Connor weren’t tailing them. Of course, that proved to be the least of her problems.

“Maybe we should have gone with a helmet after all,” she said after she had dragged Chuck away from an in-depth conversation about Nolan’s influence in the Batworld.

He blinked at her. “What? Why?”

Sarah jerked her head. Chuck looked around. “Ohh. I get it now. How long has this been going on?”

“Since we walked in. They’re about to start drooling.” She was somewhat used to drawing stares since she had undergone the duckling-to-swan transformation at eighteen, but never on this scale. It was like twenty Jeffs, all gaping at her.

Chuck laughed. “They really are. I think—yep, don’t look now, but the guy in the corner just drooled on himself. You could have said something. It’s easily solved.”

“It is?” Sarah raised a skeptical eyebrow until Chuck dropped an arm around her shoulders. Instantly, half of the staring stopped, and the other half turned to glaring. “OK, wow, it really is. I like how your mind works.”

“Me too.”

They wandered the rest of the con and if Chuck felt the need to visit one of the booths, he at least kept a grip on her hand. A couple of times, they were asked to pose for pictures with people dressed in similar jumpsuits, or other tall blondes in a red dress. At one point, a woman in jeans and a leather jacket complimented them on how realistic the uniforms were. Chuck seemed to have lost control of his voice. “I…uh…”

“The guys are never going to believe just how much detail you put into these things,” the woman went on. “Could I get a picture with you? You know, just to show them?”

“Of—of course!” Chuck hastily cleared his throat and all but sprinted to the nearest nerd, who was wearing a Superman costume, to ask him to take the picture. He then put on his biggest grin for the picture.

After the woman had walked away, Sarah turned to him with a raised eyebrow. “Should I be jealous?”

“What?” Chuck still looked a bit like he had been smacked in the face with a two-by-four. “What for?”

“Who was that? She wasn’t even wearing a costume.”

“Who was—who _was_ that?” Chuck startled her by clapping a hand over her mouth and dragging her away from the area. He let her go before she could struggle free. “You’re trying to get us killed in a room full of nerds. Don’t let anybody hear you ask that! That was Katee Sackhoff!”

“Who’s Katee Sackhoff?”

“Oh, god, we’re going to die,” Chuck said. “She plays Kara Thrace.”

Sarah just gave him a blank look.

“You! Your costume. That was her.”

“Oh.” Sarah blinked. “I don’t really look that much like her, I think. Here, let me see the camera.”

“Don’t we have a con to pull?”

“Says the man who has visited every booth in this place. C’mon, I’m curious. Hand it over.”

Despite all of that, they made it to their appointed location with twenty minutes to spare, and found most of the others waiting in a small alcove off to the side, not far from the booth with their fake video game setup. Half of the Stormtrooper troop had abandoned their helmets for the moment, and Sarah didn’t blame them. Though the hotel was pumping cold air in as fast as they could, the temperature had certainly risen with so many nerds milling around the place.

“What’s going on there?” she asked, spotting a throng of people emerging from one of the conference rooms nearby.

“Panel for a TV show, it looks like,” Chuck said. “Just let out. That’s good, it’ll give us more people nearby.”

“Great,” Sarah said, hoping once again that Scopes was wrong about Connor’s mob connections, and that he wouldn’t have a gun. She turned as Jeff, in full make up and a bright silver and black vest with fearsome shoulder pads, arrived and squeezed by to sit next to Lester, who wore most of the Stormtrooper gear like the others in the alcove.

When she turned back, Harry Tang was standing in front of her, practically in her face.

“This isn’t over,” he said. “I won’t ever forget what you said to me, and I will have my revenge, do you understand that?”

He was probably hoping for her to get angry and start a fight. The power players, Sarah thought with a sigh, never changed. Still, she wasn’t a saint, so she raised an eyebrow. “Aren’t you a little short for a Stormtrooper?” she asked, snidely.

Instantly, there was the sound of mass gasping. Sarah whirled on the spot, expecting trouble, but there was nothing behind her. When she turned back to the group in the alcove, they were all staring at her, as if they had been stunned stupid. She started to ask what they were staring at, but Jeff abruptly dropped to one knee and bowed his head, followed closely by Skip and then Lester.

“Wh—”

Chuck grabbed Sarah’s arm and hauled her away before she could finish her question. “C’mon, princess,” he said, “I think we need to go check out a video game booth or two.”

“Was it something I said?” Sarah asked, allowing her to be drawn away.

She didn’t expect it, but Chuck tossed his head back and laughed. “You’re amazing,” was all he said, leaning in to kiss her.

Their cell phones buzzed at the same time before he could. “Our streak appears to be working against us,” Sarah observed, pulling her phone out. She squeaked in surprise when Chuck ignored the phones to yank her close in the middle of the con and kiss her, amid catcalls and immature comments from passing nerds. She blinked when he stepped back. “Or not.”

“Not sure I’ll get to do that again,” Chuck said, sounding like he was forcefully keeping his voice light. Sarah opened her mouth, though what she could possibly hope to say to him, she had no idea, but he looked down at the phone in her hand. “Is that Big Mike?”

Still a little muddled, she flipped open the phone. All of her fog cleared at the contents of the message. “It is,” she said, and looked up at Chuck. “They’re here.”


	22. Sarah the Fall Girl

“They’re here.”

Sarah shared one last look with Chuck, a look that would have to say everything she couldn’t. She stepped back from Chuck and watched him fade into the crowd, an easy task with all of the con-goers still leaving the conference room from the TV panel. Around her, the team fell into their positions. Ellie slipped away, her part complete. Devon and Anna straightened their costumes; the Stormtroopers pulled on their helmets.

It was go time.

She felt her own shoulders straighten, but she donned a cold look rather than a nervous one as she slipped the burn phone into her pocket, fingers checking to make sure her Stacee Kemp ID was still in place. It wasn’t hard to look pissed. She had only to remember things like the Candy Galore prank, and all of the stupid little jokes she had put up with over the weeks of playing the role of Stacee Kemp. Being forced to leap out a window while blind to escape was only the cherry on the top of her anger. The very real fear was still there, sticking its cold fingers through her ribcage and fluttering at her stomach, but she ignored it with the ease of a woman who had grown up swindling people. Just like any other time, she told herself, though she knew that was wrong, that this was personal.

When Connor came into view, her frown faltered abruptly. Something was up. Connor should have looked arrogant, or upset, or annoyed that he would have to go through this. If that wasn’t the persona he was choosing to play, he should at the very least look furious. Though she knew she could easily frighten a lightweight like Scopes, Connor had no reason to fear her.

So why did he look so terrified?

She could read fear as plain as desert daylight outside, stark and naked on his face. He wore jeans and a T-shirt, the geek uniform of the day, but he didn’t blend in with the crowd at all. For one thing, the clothes seemed ill-fitting on him, unsurprising since he normally wore slacks, a button-up, and usually a vest. A T-shirt and jeans were the definition of slumming for him. The attendees streaming around him looked interested or amused by what was going on around them; Connor appeared to be about two seconds from being ill.

He was also alone, though he carried a backpack over one shoulder and a laptop bag in his opposite hand.

The fear changed to disbelief when he spotted her. He hurried forward the last few steps, grabbing her by the elbow. “What the hell are you doing here?”

Out of the corner of her eye, Sarah saw Chuck take one possessive step forward, and one of the Stormtroopers reach for his fake gun. She yanked her arm out of Connor’s grip. “Are you on crack? Of course I came. Unlike some here, I keep my word. I want my money, you no-good, lying sack of—”

Connor turned away so abruptly that she broke off. And when he let out an actual moan, Sarah felt the temperature of the room plummet, though she had no idea why.

Something was very, very wrong.

Connor began to mutter to himself, the last thing she had expected. She had to lean forward to hear. “Oh, god, I’m going to be the one that gets Jack Burton’s daughter killed. It’s going to be me. I’ll never live it down.”

“Should’ve thought of that before you framed me.”

“Well, I had no idea you were going to jump out a bloody window, did I? Who _does_ things like that?”

Sarah didn’t miss a beat. “I do.”

“Got that memo loud and clear, thanks.” Connor turned back to her, his expression waspish. He still kept a death-grip on the laptop bag. “Why the hell did you come here?”

“Excuse me? I set up this meet, I’ll run it how I see fit.”

“That’s not what I meant.” Connor pinched the bridge of his nose. “You don’t know the first thing about anything, do you?”

“You know what? That’s it, I’m done.” It was petty, but Sarah gave him the finger. “Screw you,” she added for good measure, and spun on her heel.

Connor snatched her arm to stop her from stomping away. This time, Sarah saw Chuck take a step forward. His face was cold enough to make her want to shiver, but thankfully, Ellie had appeared beside him. She put a restraining arm in front of his midsection. As for Sarah, she merely turned her head and gave Connor a look that had once made a full-grown man cry.

“I didn’t know you were going to jump out the damned window,” Connor said, wisely dropping her arm again. “You were supposed to get arrested. It should’ve kept you safe.”

“Kept me—kept me _safe_? Don’t try to swindle a swindler, Connor, it’s insulting. The only thing my getting arrested would have done was give you a larger cut of the profits. And hey, you had the benefit of your own fall-girl—literally! Oh-so-sorry to ruin your plans.”

Connor rolled his eyes. “You don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.”

“You lied to me, double-crossed me, let me take the fall for you, and now you’re trying to tell me it was for my own good?” She wasn’t normally prone to fits of violence, but Sarah wanted very much to smash her fist through Connor’s unctuous, rat-like face. “Got any ocean-front property in Arizona to sell me while you’re at it? Because, boy, are you on a roll or what.”

“I didn’t have a choice.”

“There’s always a choice. You chose to be greedy, and I’m choosing to make you pay for that. See? Choices. Now, I’m bored. Did you bring my money?”

“Yes, I brought the money. I assume you’ve got some place to set up in this hellhole?” Connor cast a distasteful look around. As tempted as she might be to defend the nerds, Sarah just gave him a quelling look and led the way over to the booth. Devon and Anna had made themselves scarce, as ordered. “You brought the key?”

“I keep my word,” Sarah said, folding her arms over her chest. Her message was clear: she wasn’t going to make a move until she saw money.

Connor swung the backpack onto the table and opened the main pouch. Sarah only had to see a flash of green to know the contents. And now, she thought, the trouble begins. Money, as she had told Chuck, changed people. It also distracted them, even in the middle of the con. Especially in the middle of the con. She kept her gaze on Connor’s face.

He scowled back and Sarah pawed through the bag. “You know, Ben was smart,” Connor said with no prompting whatsoever. “A hell of a lot smarter than you. I was so happy when you dropped off the reservation. Thought you finally understood what was going on, but nope, apparently that’s too much for you.”

“Drop the insults, Connor, or I’m going to double my price.”

“What happened to being a woman of your word?”

“Consider it sales tax,” Sarah said, still sifting through the money. Small bills, untraceable, just as the email had ordered. Connor must have either had a payment ready, or he had spent the last twenty-four hours tap-dancing. She didn’t care much which it was. “I hate to drag us down memory lane here, but you stole all of my money, Connor. You made me look like an idiot, and you stole all of my money. Where was I supposed to go?”

“To Carly!” Connor pushed his hands through his hair, frustrated, and Sarah began to suspect that he might believe his own lies. “Out of the country. Far away, I don’t care. I just don’t want the death of Jack Burton’s daughter on my head. We were all going to be safe, and get away with it, but then you had to go and mess it up.”

“Gee, imagine how I might want to put a stop to being robbed of all of my savings. That’s a shocker.” Sarah zipped the bag closed and pushed it to the back of the table, keeping it between them. “Where are the others? My email was specific. I wanted you all here.”

“They’re coming. Let’s see the key.”

“When everybody’s here. Not until then.”

“We’re all going to die here today,” Connor said. “I hope you know that.”

“What’s the matter, Connor? Your mob buddies making life difficult?”

Connor grabbed her arm a third time. “They’re not _my_ buddies.”

Twice was more than enough. Sarah ignored their surroundings, all of the nerds streaming by, and twisted. She latched onto Connor’s wrist with her free hand and spun the man around, slamming him face-first into the table so hard that the backpack full of money jumped a full six inches.

“Whoa!” some nerd shouted. “Go Starbuck!”

Sarah paid no attention. She leaned over Connor, exerting pressure on his pinned wrist. “Don’t touch me again,” she said. “I barely held my bodyguard back this time. You do that again, I can’t make any promises.”

She let him go and took a step back.

“So you brought back-up,” Connor said, shoving himself away from the table. There was an ugly red mark on his face.

“Maybe. Perhaps not.”

“Better hope you didn’t. They’ll all be dead, too.”

“You sure have gotten morbid in your old age, Connor. If your buddies aren’t here in two minutes, deal’s off. I take the money and walk. Consider it pain and suffering.”

“As if I’m going to let that happen.”

Sarah raised her eyebrows.

Connor sighed. “Very well. Do yourself a favor: don’t mouth back at them. Maybe there’s a way we can all survive this, as much as I sincerely doubt it at the moment.”

“I’ll ‘mouth back’ at Terrence and Scopes if I want to, and no power in the ‘verse is going to stop me,” Sarah said.

“Did you just say…’verse?” Connor squinted.

Damn it, Chuck’s nerdy ways must have been rubbing off on her. “One minute thirty seconds,” Sarah said.

“Remember what I said,” Connor said, and waved at somebody Sarah couldn’t see. She watched out of the corner of her eye. The Stormtroopers on her crew were doing as ordered, mingling and watching things on screens at the surrounding booths. Anna was flirting with some nerds that were asking about Chuck and Skip’s simulated video game, no doubt. She couldn’t see Chuck any longer, but she had a feeling he was close. Big Mike and Jeff were probably still keeping guard, as they were supposed to do. The plan required most of her crew to remain stationary and blend in. Sarah could only hope they remembered their orders.

She spotted Terrence first. It wasn’t hard, given that he matched Connor almost exactly, built on much reedier lines and wearing the same T-shirt. The look that was half-sulk, half-terrified would have given him away if the outfit hadn’t. He came to stand next to Connor with a sneer, but mercifully remained silent.

“And here it comes,” Connor said, so low she almost didn’t hear him.

The only “it” Sarah could think of was Scopes and his disgusting ways, which where clearly enough to have anybody constantly mistaken for an alien life-form, so that was understandable. _Here goes_ , she thought, but she didn’t straighten her shoulders or take a deep breath. No need to give away any sign of nerves to Terrence and Connor. Ready for anything, she turned—

—And nearly teetered sideways.

There was a young man in a Matt Priest costume coming toward her. It wasn’t the first costume she’d seen—there was a startling number of Matt Priests wandering around Priest-Con—but it was the first one that she knew. This Matt Priest stood tall and straight, built on the thin side and yet still somehow athletic and almost muscular. The alb he wore was well-cut and tailored perfectly, and his dark hair shone, clean and full-bodied enough to make shampoo models jealous.

Confused, startled, Sarah glanced at Terrence and Connor to see if either them were as shocked as she was. Other than looking vaguely ill, neither betrayed any surprise.

Sarah’s nerves turned to very real fear.

Because heading toward her was Scopes.

And not only was he cleaned-up and looking almost handsome, he was flanked by two men built like a cross between bears and tree trunks, wearing leather jackets to match their scowls.

“Who are they?” Sarah asked Terrence and Connor. She had to assume they were the buyers, which made her worried. Neither of them looked like the nerd security at Priest-Con could hold them off.

Terrence flicked a look at her. “Javier and Jorge Diablo,” he said.

Sarah’s bowels turned to water. “You guys are involved with the Diablo brothers? Are you _suicidal_?”

She’d heard of Javier and Jorge Diablo; most everybody on the grift had. Though her father had done his level best to keep her away from seedy cons, the years between eighteen and twenty-two had been lean for Sarah, which meant that she had taken quite a few unsavory jobs to make the ends meet. Even so, she’d never personally had to work with the Diablos, something for which she thanked her lucky stars every chance she got.

The Diablos were rather famous for employing conmen on their scams and schemes. Very few of those conmen actually saw any of the money they’d earned.

_Usually the last thing they see is the bottom of a river and their concrete shoes._

“Not us,” Connor said, swallowing hard, and in that moment, Sarah understood.

She’d been played. Not by Connor, as she had originally thought, but by somebody far more sinister. Connor had never been the crew-leader. It had never been a simple robbery/scam. It had been a mob-funded long-range con, in which the victims weren’t just Boston Techtronics, but Connor, Terrence, herself, and most likely Ben Arnold. It seemed only the latter had managed to escape. She’d thought she had been running the show in the arcade, when she had pushed Scopes around, but apparently she had been played like a fiddle.

And now she was pitting ten people and herself against the Diablo brothers, and a man who had conned her not once, but _twice_. “How long has Scopes been connected to the Diablo Brothers?” she asked, her throat and mouth dry with fear.

“Does it matter? They’re the buyers, and they’re not happy to cut a third party in.” Connor folded his arms over his chest. “Congratulations. We’re all going to die.”

Even if Sarah wanted to argue with him, she didn’t have time; Scopes and the Diablo brothers reached the booth.

“Hello, Sarah,” Scopes said, his smile just as oily as the rest of him had been once upon a time. “Glad to see you could make it.”

“Ah, Scopes. Unfortunately, you’re still alive.” Sarah gave a disdainful sniff. “I guess that’s good. It’s nice to see that the scum still rises to the top. Going to introduce me to your friends?”

Scopes didn’t even have the decency to look nonplussed. “Certainly. Sarah, these are the Diablos. Jorge, Javier, my associate, Sarah Walker. You brought the key, I trust?”

“I did.”

“Well, where is it?”

“I want to see the other half of the money first.”

“Very well.” Scopes raised an eyebrow at Terrence, who gave Sarah an angry look and slung an identical backpack onto the table by the first. “Your money, as requested.”

Scopes waited patiently while Sarah checked the money, though she sensed the Diablo brothers shifting behind him. “Now, the key?”

Sarah hesitated, though she knew it was foolish. The Diablo brothers added a different element that she didn’t like exposing Chuck to. She’d thought the buyers might just be mercenaries out for a few quick bucks, but with men used to conmen and dangerous besides…that was a whole different problem. However, she didn’t really have a choice, this far in, like she’d told Chuck the night (or morning) before. She would just have to have faith, no matter how much Scopes’s true nature had shocked her and even now made her want to flee the room in terror.

“This is a business transaction,” she told Scopes. “Any history, any beef between any of us, once this money changes hands and you have your key, the score is settled.”

“I can agree to that,” Scopes said. “You made for a rather pretty fall-girl, you know. The best in the business, Jack Burton’s daughter.”

 _OK_ , Sarah thought, _I should have added, once this money changes hands and I punch you in the face, the score is settled then._

“Get out your computer so that I can get a look at the software myself,” she told Connor, “and I’ll give you the key.”

He glanced at the bosses for permission, which the one on the left—Jorge, maybe?—gave, while Javier continued to glare at Sarah. All at once, she was grateful for the costume Morgan and Chuck had picked for her, and the fact that it had combat boots. She’d seen a couple of women wandering around in what looked like metal bikinis, and she doubted any one of the cretins currently surrounding her would have taken her seriously in that getup. The flight suit and jacket made her feel just a little bit badass.

But even that couldn’t counteract the distinct unease going through her as Connor opened the bag and pulled out a slim laptop. Since he was still standing closest to her, she was the only one that heard him mutter, “You don’t have to go through this step. Just give them the key, take the money, and run fast.”

“If I did what you wanted, I’d be in jail right now,” Sarah said, giving Connor a falsely sweet smile. “Excuse me for wanting you to shut the hell up.”

“Excuse me for wanting to help you,” Connor said snippily, turning back to the laptop.

Sarah turned the other way, only to find herself face to face with Javier Diablo, who’d used her distraction to sidle closer to her. She glared up at him, sticking to the persona she would have to project for this entire con to work. Thankfully, it wasn’t too hard to play the pissed-off wronged woman.

“Personal space much?” she asked, folding her arms over her chest.

It was apparently the wrong thing to say, as Javier’s ugly face turned even uglier. Uh-oh. “I’ve had it,” the Diablo growled, and before Sarah could react, he’d grabbed her arm and twisted her around. He was surprisingly spry for such a hefty individual, but that wasn’t Sarah’s biggest problem at the moment.

No, Sarah’s biggest problem was the feel of cold metal pressed to the underside of her jaw. She hadn’t been around them much, but she didn’t need a great deal of experience to know exactly what it was.

Javier Diablo was pointing a gun at her head.

Sarah’s eyes met Chuck’s across the crowd.

_Holy crap._


	23. Sarah the Con Artist

A movement to her right was the only warning she had and then Terrence was standing in front of her and Javier Diablo, a defiant glare across his unpleasant face. He looked like the very picture of fury itself. “Are you an _idiot_?” he hissed at the Diablo brother.

Sarah blinked, but the picture didn’t change: it was still Terrence, the unctuous loser she’d spent several nights dreaming of kicking in the face, standing in front of her. Defending her.

“Terrence!” Connor looked freaked out, and Sarah felt the black coldness of the gun pressed against the underside of her jaw waver, as if Javier Diablo had suddenly become uncertain. “What the hell are you doing?”

“He’s going to get us all arrested, Con. We’re all going to die today, but no way in hell am I going to jail.”

“I’d kill you first, I think,” the other Diablo grunted. Sarah couldn’t see him—he was behind her, next to Scopes, and she certainly wasn’t going to move a muscle, not with the thirty-eight special snugged up against her jaw like this. In fact, she wasn’t even going to talk; she was too fond of her vocal cords for them to be crushed. “It will give me great pleasure.”

“Interesting,” Scopes said. “But getting us nowhere, ultimately. Javi, put the gun away before you—”

“Oh my god!” somebody in the crowd said, and Sarah felt her heart stop all over again.

“—cause a scene,” Scopes finished.

It became sheer pandemonium. Every nerd in a hundred foot radius was instantly drawn to the booth when they should have been running away or seeking cover, practically stampeding over each other to get a better look, their eyes wide and eager for a show. Indeed, Sarah heard Connor mutter to Terrence, “What the hell is _wrong_ with these people?”

Sarah heard a Klingon tell his Jedi friend, “This is so great! I didn’t think they were doing demonstrations at Priest-Con this year!”

If Sarah hadn’t been too busy fearing for her life and her crew, she would have laughed at the sheer absurdity of it all. Apparently, coming to Priest-Con was the best idea Jeff had ever had.

Somehow, across the crowd, her eyes met Chuck’s again. He looked…grim and as close to outright pissed off and scared as she had ever seen him. _Please_ , she thought at him. _Please don’t do anything rash, heroic, or stupid_. She could get her way out of this situation, and she cared less about the plan than she had even a moment before, not with the potential of Chuck or somebody on the crew getting hurt. Meeting his gaze across the crowd should have bolstered her. Weren’t loved ones supposed to give one strength in situations like—and had she really just thought that? Sarah began to shake, and it had very little to do with the gun against her head. Another part of her, however, remained coldly logical. And thankfully, that part was the one in control of her hand, which slipped easily behind her, fingers curled loosely around her quarry.

“Uh,” Javier Diablo said, his basso voice rumbling through his chest so deeply that Sarah felt it against her back.

The crowd seemed to be thinking the same thing. “What gives?”

“Lame!”

“C’mon, start already!”

“Kick his ass, Starbuck!”

Sarah’s heart began to pound, her throat going completely dry, but she kept her face steady, a lifetime of practice coming to her aid. Do something, her brain urged her, but she ignored it, waiting. There were three seasoned conmen in this situation with her, one of them could surely find a way out of this.

Connor, Terrence, and Scopes didn’t move.

_Guess not._

“What’s this?” Chuck’s voice cut through the din. “My friend just texted me, there’s a full cast ‘Firefly’ reunion in the Starlight Room!” He gasped and looked up, his eyes wide. “Even Summer’s there!”

Sarah had never seen a mass exodus move quite that fast. Even some of her crew split, though she hoped it was only for show.

Left alone now, Chuck pocketed his phone and calmly strode up to the group at the booth, his walk more of a saunter than anything else. “You can let my client go now,” he said to Javier, looking every bit confident and in control—the perfect conman.

Javier Diablo, who if original thoughts were coins, wouldn’t even produce a jingle by shaking his head, was evidently so befuddled by Chuck’s appearance that he immediately obeyed. The instant she was freed, Sarah calmly brushed off her flight jacket and stepped away, standing by Chuck and facing her old crew with only a hint of smugness on her face.

“Who the hell are you?” Scopes asked, taking over the meeting.

Chuck barely spared him a glance. “Carmichael,” he said, addressing the assembly at large. “Charles Carmichael. Friends call me Chuck, you can call me sir.”

“What the hell do you want?”

“What the hell do you want, sir.”

Scopes just stared.

“Very well, we’ll come back to that.” Chuck didn’t miss a beat. “I’m here to represent my client.” He placed a hand on Sarah’s back in a move that looked purely professional. Sarah, however, felt the pressure of his fingers, as though he was reassuring himself that she was truly OK.

“He’s a fixer,” she said, picking up the narrative. “Did you honestly think I would come alone?”

“You don’t have enough money to pay a fixer,” Scopes said. “I made sure of that.”

“Jack Burton hired me,” Chuck said, and Sarah thankfully managed not to jolt. That definitely wasn’t in the script. “I’m the best in the business.”

“How come I’ve never heard of you, then?”

“Because that would mean I wasn’t doing my job right.” Chuck’s tone filled in the omitted ‘you idiot’ more than suitably. He gave Scopes a pitying look. “You really should call me sir, you know, it would make things go so much smoother for you.”

“Enough of that,” Jorge Diablo said, as the rest of the group was too busy watching the verbal sparring between Scopes and Chuck like a tennis match to interfere. “I want my software.”

“And I want to be out of this hellhole,” Sarah heard Connor mutter.

“Get a move on,” Jorge finished.

Chuck turned to Sarah. “The money’s here?” he asked, though Sarah knew he had been watching from the beginning, and obviously hearing everything if he was throwing her father’s full name around willy-nilly. She merely nodded. They were technically off-script now—Chuck wasn’t supposed to get involved yet—but she had a feeling Chuck had a plan. “Excellent. Let’s, as Senor Diablo—can I call you that, or would you prefer Jorge? Hm, I think I’ll go with Senor Diablo, suits you better, I think. Let’s make Senor Diablo’s day. The software?”

Scope’s face set into mulish lines. “We don’t have to show you the software.”

“Actually, you do. That was part of the deal Miss, I believe she goes by—”

“Kemp,” Sarah said. “Stacee Kemp.”

“Miss Kemp’s deal was that she see the software she assisted in the robbery of. I think it’s only fair.”

“And how do I know this isn’t a sting?”

“Because you’re a smart man, Mr. Scopes. You’d smell Fed a mile away.”

_Which is why the FBI is at least two or three miles away._

“You’re lucky I don’t just call this off right now,” Sarah said, folding her arms over her chest. “As guns were definitely not part of the deal.”

“How’d you get that past security, anyway?” Chuck asked, and Sarah trod on his foot. He got the message. “Not that, you know, it really matters. I’m sure you just smiled sweetly at them, you have such a nice smile. But anyway, I’m here to look after my client’s interests, and if she wants to see the software, you let her see the software.”

“Or what?”

“What part of ‘my client’s interests’ was hard to understand? Jack Burton hired me, and Jack Burton gets what Jack Burton wants. Now, the software.”

Chuck crossed his arms over his chest and gave Scopes such a smartass look that Sarah was almost flustered by the sudden desire for the con to be over, and for it to be just her and Chuck alone, preferably with a bed. She wasn’t picky, any soft surface would do.

She quickly shoved those thoughts away as they were more than likely to get her killed horribly, and in the stark face of reality of the gun pointing at her head, the joke about dying a happy woman no longer seemed all that amusing.

Scopes lasted twenty seconds before he gave in to Chuck’s stare and jerked his head at Connor. He might have lasted longer, but Jorge Diablo had nudged him forcefully with one meaty fist.

“This is not how these things are supposed to go,” Connor grumbled as he made the motions to set up the laptop.

“Should’ve thought about that before you tossed my client out a window, Morton,” Chuck said.

Connor turned. “I didn’t toss her out! She jumped!”

“Your word against hers, and she’s paying me more.”

Sarah gave Connor the same smartass smile Chuck had given Scopes.

It was a humming, tense minute before Connor finished loading up the stolen software; the Diablo brothers remained as stone-faced as they had been during the whole meeting, Terrence shifting his feet and glaring at all of them mutinously, and Scopes looking as though he had smelled something awful. Sarah didn’t miss out on the irony of that. She worked to keep her face vaguely bored and angry, though she could feel Chuck beginning to shift a little beside her.

_C’mon, keep it together. Five more minutes and this will be done._

Around them, nerds were starting to trickle back into the area. Apparently the Firefly cast reunion hadn’t spread like wildfire over Priest-Con, or somebody had disproved the rumor early on. Sarah spotted members of her crew out of the corner of her eye: there was Skip, wearing his Stormtrooper gear, looking odd as he texted somebody. Ellie, in her suit, hadn’t abandoned ship like she had promised she would, as she was hanging around the fringes of the crowd, looking worried. Chuck would freak out if he knew that, but Ellie was evidently smart enough to stay out of her brother’s eye-line. Sarah didn’t see Lester, Morgan, or Harry Tang, but she would have to hope they hadn’t chased down the elusive dream of a _Firefly_ reunion, as they were the now the only things between her and federal prison.

“All right,” Connor said, nodding over at Scopes.

Scopes lifted an eyebrow at Chuck, who nodded back at Connor before removing his jacket. It was the equivalent of rolling up his sleeves, which Sarah had seen him do a few times while attempting to tackle something at the computer. Wordlessly, she took the jacket from him.

Scopes held up a hand to stop Chuck as he approached the computer. “What the hell are you doing?”

Chuck gave him a disdainful look. “Checking the program.”

“Computer nerd _and_ fixer?”

“Jack Burton wanted the best, and if you want something done right, do it yourself. Now, if you’d kindly remove your hand, we won’t have any problems.”

Scopes didn’t move, though his glare had turned into something even uglier.

“Very well,” Chuck said. “C’mon, Miss Kemp, we’re done here.”

Before he could grab her elbow and lead her away, Javier Diablo growled, and Sarah thought, _here we go again_. But Scopes just sighed. “Very well. Proceed, whatever your name was. Carson, Carlotta, whatever.”

Chuck gave him such a cold look that Sarah nearly raised an eyebrow. Apparently, Chuck was pulling some of his natural dislike of Scopes—and possibly some of hers, too—into his performance. It was…chilling.

“Carmichael,” Scopes said, and there was an element of hurried panic in his voice now. “Right, that was it. My bad.”

 _To think I’ve been worried about all of this_ , Sarah thought. She had only begun to see the potential Chuck held for this life in the performance he had given in Mr. Cartwright’s office. The plan had been for Chuck to come in as her bumbling computer nerd when it was time to check over the program, not a self-confident and cocky fixer. But it _worked_. If she’d known it would work this well, she would have suggested it for the original plan.

But no con went down without at least a little improvisation, so maybe they were doing well.

“Hmm,” Chuck, at the computer, said. “You said you took this from—”

“Shh!” Terrence said, shooting a nervous look at the Diablos and Scopes.

Chuck gave him a puzzled look. “Is there something you want to tell me, Mr…?”

“Smith,” Terrence supplied quickly, looking nervously around at the entire group. “And don’t say the name aloud. Cameras, you know.”

“And if you think I haven’t taken care of the cameras first thing, Mr. _Smith_ , you really do think I’m terrible at my job. Very well, though, we’ll play your charade for now. The computer software checks out, Miss Kemp.” Chuck turned toward her, and she saw what she hoped the others missed: he had no idea exactly how to proceed.

 _My turn_. “Thank you, Mr. Carmichael. Since Chuck here says it’s all a go, I’ll be happy to hand over the software key. Mr. Carmichael will test the key in the system and then we will exchange the key for my money at the same time.”

As much as she was sure Connor or Scopes would like to protest, the Diablos’ expressions had grown more thunderous than every passing minute. They knew it was only a matter of time before things exploded again.

_Don’t think about how sure Connor and Terrence are that we’re all going to die._

Chuck produced the copied key from his cargo pocket and held it up. Even with Priest-Con’s bright colors, flashing lights, and parade of costumes, the little frog thumb drive looked ridiculous under the casino lighting. But Sarah didn’t miss the hungry look Scopes gave it. It was definitely his con, she decided. Connor was a front, Terrence a trained monkey, and she was the fall-girl. Painted in such stark light, it was shamefully simple and embarrassing.

The instant the software key was inserted into the laptop, programs began to flash and flicker across the laptop screen. It would have alarmed her, but Scopes and Chuck seemed to think this was absolutely normal.

“Excellent,” Scopes said as Chuck took the drive out of the computer and stepped back with it. “Everything appears to be in order. Let’s make the trade and get these shenanigans over with, shall we?”

“On the count of three?” Chuck asked, and Sarah hoped her team was listening for the cue, and that they hadn’t sought dreams of a ship named _Serenity_.

“Why do we need a three-count?” Scopes asked. “We’re all professionals here, we’ll just simply swap.”

“Oh. Very well, then.”

_Here’s hoping the team improvises better than Chuck predicted._

“Ready?” Chuck asked.

“I was b—”

“I really hope you’re not going to say ‘born ready,’“ Sarah interrupted, half out of reflex and half to buy her team a little more time to adjust to this new plan.

Scopes glared at her.

“Ready?” Chuck asked again, shooting Sarah a look.

Scopes’s glare deepened. “Ready.”

“Then…here you go.” Chuck held out the drive.

Of course it was then that something slammed into Sarah from behind with the force of a linebacker going full steam. She let out a feigned cry of surprise as she stumbled forward, not quite into Chuck, but into Chuck’s trajectory. Morgan, who’d hit her, barely stopped; he snatched the drive from Chuck’s hand and then actually ran right _through_ the group, Terrence, Scopes, Connor, and both Diablo Brothers, and sprinted into the crowd. A second later, there were two identical white blurs as Harry Tang and Lester followed, their builds and height indistinguishable from Morgan’s.

Mayhem struck. Sarah let her momentum carry her forward Connor, who held one backpack of money. He dropped it in surprise. It made a heavy thud as it hit the ugly red-brown carpet beneath their feet, but it didn’t have time for a second bounce. Because Anna, waiting patiently for her cue, was suddenly there, streaking in and swooping the backpack up. There was barely a microsecond pause as she slung the backpack over one shoulder, rested a hand on the booth, and vaulted clean over. She hit the ground running, and Sarah didn’t wait around to see if Anna got away. She was too busy running herself, shouting, “Hey!” and chasing Morgan and the other two. She blew right past one Diablo brother, who gave her a shocked look.

Scopes had a similar idea in mind, he took off after Morgan as well, and his legs were longer than Sarah’s.

Behind her, Sarah heard a thumping that could only be one of the hefty Diablos following. _Oh crap_. She could only hope that it wasn’t the hothead with the itchy trigger finger. _Why didn’t I worry more about there being guns_? In a crowd this huge, it could be nothing but trouble.

The three Stormtroopers zigzagged through the crowd until even she wasn’t sure which was Morgan and which were Lester and Harry Tang, chased by Starbuck, Matt Priest, and a Mexican hitman.

“Stop!” Scopes shouted. “Stop, thief! Somebody stop them!”

The hand-off was so smooth that Sarah didn’t even see it, but she sprinted right past Big Mike, looking entirely smug. She almost broke character to give him a thumbs up.

But with the hand-off over, she needed to make herself scarce. So when the Stormtrooper trio zigged, she zagged, ducking into a group of bald nerds that had painted their heads blue and seemed to be wearing priest garb like Scopes. Unfortunately, she wasn’t quick enough, and Javier Diablo spotted her.

_Well, crap._

This part of the plan involved blending in, keeping a low profile until the group could meet up again, hopefully outside of the con, possibly in the casino or even back in the hotel rooms. They had cell phones and special messages pre-encoded that meant different things. Sarah’s part was technically over; the others were supposed to be interested in Morgan, who had the trick drive. Lester and Harry had identical drives, a white-armored shell game. Javier Diablo was supposed to give chase to them.

But Javier Diablo hadn’t been privy to what was supposed to happen.

Sarah didn’t quite take off running, but she did leave the blue men rather quickly, branching off into the main hallway that led all the way around the booths. She had the possibility of getting lost in the crowd there, but if she couldn’t do that within thirty seconds or so, she probably needed to get the guy with the gun away from so many people. When she glanced back, she saw him reaching for his waistband, where he kept the thirty-eight special.

 _OK, change that plan_ , definitely _need to get him away from people_.

She spotted a narrow alley between the rows of booths, technically off-limits to anybody who wasn’t working the con. She’d worry about propriety later.

Unfortunately, a thin man with Superman glasses and a too-prominent Adam’s apple blocked her way. “I’m sorry, you can’t go this way. Con personnel only, you see.”

“I know that, I just—” Sarah cast a desperate look over her shoulder at Javier, who was advancing more slowly now, perhaps aware that his prey had been metaphorically treed.

“Con personnel only,” the geek repeated, more forcefully. “You’ll have to go back to the main pathways like everybody else, Miss Thrace.”

Javier was getting too close.

“Sorry,” Sarah said. “This is for your own good.”

She shoved the geek aside and took off. The combat boots had surprisingly terrible traction on the flattened casino carpet, and it was like an obstacle course, dodging around electrical cords, power strips, and boxes of con supplies. She sent a silent prayer of thanks to whatever deity insured she ran every day, and plunged onward. Behind her, she heard shouting and cursing as Javier Diablo crashed his way through, not nearly as nimble, but none of it sounded terrified, which meant he hadn’t pulled the gun again.

Sarah started to glance over her shoulder and check, just to be sure, but she stumbled forward, slamming her knee into the ground painfully enough to make her grunt, and jarring her bad shoulder. There was only time for a flash of pain before she was up and running again, sprinting past startled con-goers.

_And they said there wouldn’t be any demonstrations at Priest-Con, my ass._

She reached the end of the alley, blocked on this side by a booth covered in books and loose-leaf sheets of paper that contained cartoon sketches. Like Morgan had earlier, she placed a hand on the edge and vaulted over, barely missing elbowing the bearded and tattooed owner of the booth in the face.

Belatedly, she called out a “Sorry!” over her shoulder as she muscled her way through the crowd of people evidently wanting an autograph. Whether she was apologetic for the near miss, or the fact that Javier knocked the booth clean over in his haste to get over, she didn’t have time to evaluate now.

She was actually somewhat near the booth Skip’s cousin had procured for the crew, over by where all of the panels were held. She couldn’t go back to the booth, though she was fairly sure there wouldn’t be anybody there. They had declared the booth a no-go zone once Devon took off with the key, and Anna grabbed the—

 _Oh hell_.

Anna hadn’t grabbed the computer. That was the plan, for Anna to grab the computer, while Morgan, Harry Tang, and Lester played their shell-game, with the added insurance of passing off the tricked-out drive Chuck had prepared to Big Mike en route, a move Sarah had made the two men practice so much they’d whined that they could do it in their sleep.

Anna had grabbed the money.

The money Chuck hadn’t wanted them to take.

Sarah almost stopped dead in her tracks. Thankfully, a healthy sense of self-preservation kept her running, kept her dodging and weaving and zigzagging and side-stepping. She needed a destination—every good con artist had an endgame in mind, after all—but she was too busy reeling inwardly, hoping against all hope that somebody had thought to grab the computer.

She didn’t even notice that she’d led Javier to what looked a ghost town version of Priest-Con. Though there were people at some of the booths, most of the crowds had thinned, and the people manning these booths were more interested in putting their feet up on the tables and throwing chips at each other. Such was the strangeness of a Con in general that they didn’t pay a single bit of a attention to her headlong sprint.

Her headlong sprint, Sarah corrected herself as she skidded to a stop, that ended at a wall. No wonder this area was a ghost-town; she’d somehow managed to hedge herself into a corner of the very con itself, and there was nowhere to go but back the way she’d come, back the way that even now Javier Diablo, was coming toward her. He was out of breath and glossy with sweat, but she could see the fury and the clear intent to murder across his face.

She looked around for anything, anything that could help her get out of this situation, but there was nothing but empty booths and disinterested people. Javier, sensing that his prey was once again stuck, smiled and reached for his gun again. This time it seemed huge, somehow bigger than the man himself, and Sarah entertained the thought that it was a bit ironic that something so small and impersonal was going to kill a woman who had made it her life’s work to be bigger than life on one scam after the next.

Her life did not flash in front of her eyes, yet again.

Javier raised the gun. The barrel was like some kind of evil eye, judging her.

“You know I wasn’t ever going to let you get away with my money, right?” Javier asked.

Sarah wondered if she could roll away and find some cover before he started shooting. She licked her lips, which had gone dry like the rest of her mouth. “I’d heard rumors.”

“I’d tell you it was nothing personal,” Javier said, lowering the gun to cock the hammer back. It sounded like an explosion, though Sarah figured that was her imagination. “But that’s not the case. You’re kind of a bitch, and I’m glad I don’t have to pay you. _Adios_.”

As the last thing she would hear on earth, Sarah thought, his speech sucked. She refused to shut her eyes, though—

Which was exactly why she saw the whole thing. Just as Javier raised the gun a second time, a sadistic smirk across his stupid, ugly face, a door to his left opened. The panel room, Sarah realized. It must have had a back door for the panelists to enter and exit, for several pretty people stepped through all at once, as though eager to get away from something, and they were much, much too pretty to fit in well at Priest-Con.

They also exited into the corridor right between Sarah and Javier. And even better, there were several burly men in black T-shirts that read “EVENT SECURITY” across the back in white letters.

Javier didn’t even have time to put the gun away. One of the security guards let out a shout, and just like that, people scattered. Sarah saw a brunette woman actually dive out of the way, which gave her a clear view to watch the very same security guard that had warned everybody whip out a taser, aim, and fire.

Javier Diablo made quite an impressive _thunk_ as he hit the ground. The four security guards, as they landed on top of him and to wrestle the gun away from him, made an even sweeter impact.

Sarah had been a con-artist too long to pass up this sort of opportunity. With everybody in the crowd distracted and panicking, she plunged right into the din and the furor, and made her escape.

 _Well, damn. That was close_.

  


* * *

  


Though Sarah expected to find Chuck first, as she was an expert at navigating and getting lost or found in crowds of any type, she underestimated his experience with conventions, for she turned a corner and then she was absolutely enveloped and smothered. She would have immediately tried to defend herself, but she recognized Chuck’s scent right away, and then he was pushing her to arm’s length so that he could get a good look at her. “Oh god, oh god, are you OK? When he pulled that gun, I thought for sure that the worst was going to happen, and I had no idea what to do, but you’re OK, right? The others told me they couldn’t find you, and we looked everywhere, but—”

Sarah grabbed Chuck’s face and kissed him. As expected, it stopped the babble in its tracks. A passerby wolf-whistled and another passerby sighed about being an ultimate shipper, whatever the hell that was.

She ignored them both. “Hi,” she said, smiling up at Chuck once she’d leaned back.

He smiled back. “I was freaking out, wasn’t I? That was me, freaking out, and you telling me to shut it.”

Sarah lifted an eyebrow. “You said it, not me. Where are the others?”

“Everybody’s safe. I sent them up to the rooms.”

Sarah blew out a long breath of relief. “It went according to plan?”

“Er, not exactly.”

Sarah’s eyebrow went up again. Chuck had found her by the food court, a set of tables doing a brisk bit of business with nachos, hot dogs, pizzas, and about a thousand other greasy items. It hurt her heart to think of all of the sodium, but it hurt her stomach more to think of going hungry for another hour. Perhaps waiting by the food court for Chuck to appear had been a bad move, strategically.

“Not exactly?” she asked now, grabbing Chuck’s arm to guide him away from the tempting smell of food that would surely clog her arteries. “What does that mean?”

He looked absolutely miserable for a second. “They know about the money.”

“Yeah, I saw Anna grab that bag.”

“And Jeff got the other one. I’ve got Ellie and Awesome keeping them calm, but now we have several million dollars.”

“They earned it,” Sarah said. “Did the Feds catch Scopes and the others?”

Chuck made a little bowing motion. “The program worked like a charm. Convention security nabbed the El Fatso Diablo that chased me.”

“Same,” Sarah said. She didn’t tell Chuck how close she had come to being shot. There wasn’t a point in worrying him about something that hadn’t happened.

Apparently he could read thoughts, though, since he abruptly swept her up into a hug. This time, she could feel him quivering, and realized she wasn’t the only one coming down from an insane adrenaline high. And she wasn’t the only one that could have been shot earlier. She clutched fistfuls of Chuck’s jacket and clung tight, finally allowing herself to shake and tremble. As if he understood, his grip tightened. He was OK. He hadn’t been hurt.

They had survived the con. And maybe even the Con.

“So the program really worked?” she asked, finally drawing away from Chuck. He immediately shifted and put an arm around her shoulders, as he had what had felt like hours earlier. Then, it had been to protect her from the nerds in the Con. Now, she sensed that it was some desire to simply touch and be touched, and that was perfectly fine with her.

Chuck tossed his head back and laughed. “It’s cute how you doubt me.”

Sarah poked him in the side.

“Yes, it worked. It sent the message off to the Feds and to Boston Techtronics both, letting them know that the stolen software was being accessed, and your home-boy Scopes never suspected a thing. I didn’t see it, but Big Mike says there was an FBI team waiting to arrest all three of them when they got to the entrance. Morgan’s got the laptop, and…?”

“I put the original key on Javier Diablo,” Sarah confirmed. “Con security will hand him over to the Feds, and they’ll get the key back to Boston Techtronics.”

“Our evil plan worked.” Chuck even topped it off with an evil laugh. “If it weren’t for the guns, I’d say that it was almost anticlimactic, wouldn’t you?”

“I’m just glad it’s over. Have you talked to Boston Techtronics yet?”

“Spoke to Hugh himself. He’s on his way to pick up the software; I’ll meet him at the airport with it.”

“Did you figure out what it does?”

“No, and I don’t want to know.” Chuck grinned. “Otherwise my life could become _Sneakers_ , and I don’t want that.”

“I’ll take your word for it.”

“Though, I don’t know, I’m handsome enough to be Robert Redford.”

“Handsomer,” Sarah said without missing a beat.

“You think?” Chuck brightened. They’d almost reached the exit to Priest-Con and Sarah felt her spirits lightening with every step. Once Chuck handed over the software to Boston Techtronics, and the FBI had the suspects, the charges of her could be dropped. “That’s only if they get my good side.”

“And which side is that?” she asked, genuinely curious.

He gave her a mildly shocked look. “You mean, it isn’t obvious?”

She opened her mouth to rebut that maybe he didn’t have a good side at all, just to get his goat, when ahead she heard, “FBI! Let me pass, please!”

Instantly, everything insider her went cold and numb. “Chuck, you have to get away from me, right now.”

“What? What’s going on?”

“Seriously, just trust me on this one, you have to go!” She twisted out from under Chuck’s arm, shoving him away from her. “You have to get that software to Cartwright. Go!”

He was apparently so shocked, and her tone was so forceful, that he obeyed right away, immediately dodging away and vanishing into the mass of people heading towards the exits. The minute she was gone, she wished she hadn’t pushed him away, as she was instantly terrified, and he made for great moral support. But it was too risky to have him nearby.

So she was alone when the woman in the boring suit parted the crowd and faced her, solemn-eyed. They were of a height, but there was something on this woman’s face that told Sarah she would have no problem chasing Sarah to the ends of the earth should Sarah try to run.

She didn’t run. Running from the cops, Jack Burton had once put it, means you’ve failed your perfect con. Not that it was inadvisable, he’d always add. But it does mean you’ve failed.

And if Sarah could distract this woman, Chuck could get away.

“Ah, Stacee Kemp,” the woman said, flashing a badge and an ID. “I’m FBI Special Agent Virginia Grey, and I’d like you to put your hands on your head, please. You’re under arrest.”


	24. Sarah’s Ultimate Test

There weren’t any hookers.

Sarah could admit that she wasn’t disappointed to discover that, but it did give her pause. Wasn’t that how it was supposed to go when one was thrown in the tank in Vegas? Hookers, gamblers who couldn’t pay, and the protagonist were all supposed to share a filthy, caged-in area that served as jail. She didn’t mind not having to avoid the hard-eyed stare of some woman caught out during her stroll down the strip, but it did deflate things to make the discovery that a tried-and-true cliché had no basis in reality.

Maybe wishing for hookers was a little far, but Sarah would have welcomed some sense of normality. She had been escorted by Agent Grey into the FBI office, and instead of being tossed into some cage, they had left her in a smallish cell with gray walls, a cot, and very little else. She was periodically let out to go to the bathroom, and watched the whole time.

It didn’t take a cage to make one feel like a prisoner, Sarah discovered very easily.

The fear had nearly overwhelmed her when Agent Grey had found her, but Sarah had a literal lifetime of training on her side. She’d merely held her wrists out for Grey to cuff her, handled the pat-down with what she felt was admirable aplomb, and let herself be led away from in handcuffs. Mercifully, they didn’t put her in the same car as the Diablo brothers or her original crew. She didn’t trust the Diablo brothers not to strangle her, no matter how close they were being watched by the FBI. She hadn’t seen any of them at the FBI office, either.

In fact, she hadn’t seen anybody but Agent Grey, who showed up like clockwork to escort Sarah to the restroom. Since Grey was silent almost to the point of reticence, there hadn’t been much conversation. After a couple of weeks of Chuck’s chattering, it was downright weird.

She spent the time counting the seconds and trying not to think, trying not to wonder what was going to happen. She couldn’t afford to wonder if Chuck’s ploy had worked, if Boston Techtronics would stick to their end of the deal and drop the charges. If they got the wrong type of District Attorney, he could turn it into a political agenda and make an example of Sarah’s crimes. And with every hour that passed, there was more of a chance of Sarah to be connected to any of the scams and grifts and cons over the years that had gone wrong, and had involved the police. She was fairly certain she had covered her tracks, but all it took was one.

That was how they had gotten her father.

_You’re not Jack Burton. You only got cocky and sloppy once._

It only took once.

Special Agent Grey appeared at the doorway to Sarah’s cell, her face the same inscrutable mask as ever. “Bathroom break so soon?” Sarah asked, lifting an eyebrow.

“Not quite. Somebody here to see you.”

“Oh. I didn’t realize I was so popular.”

“You and me both. C’mon.” Grey put the cuffs back on her to lead her away from the cell. Though Sarah was bursting with curiosity—Grey would’ve said if the DA was the one who wanted to see Sarah, and they hadn’t even questioned her yet, so the visitor had to be somebody else—Sarah didn’t ask. She didn’t know where she stood with Grey, and she wasn’t willing to test those boundaries yet. Part of the con was knowing when to wait and see, and Sarah had already settled in to wait, even if it was killing her by inches. So she kept silent and let Grey direct her through one hallway after the next of boring, gray office atmosphere.

They finally came to a metal door, gray like the rest of the building. Sarah lifted a brow when the nameplate next to the door read, “Interrogation,” but didn’t say anything. Grey left her inside a room that could have come straight out of any crime procedural on TV.

 _OK, this is better than hookers_. It shouldn’t have reassured her that the room was dull, just a table, two chairs on one side, one chair on the other, an obvious two-way mirror lining one wall. The table was empty save for mics pointed at both sides of the table, and the only other thing in the room was a camera in the corner, its red light blinking lazily. Sarah lowered her into the chair by itself on one side of the table, clasped her hands together in front of her, and sat still. Fear and curiosity gnawed her apart from the inside out, but she kept her poker face up.

What was Chuck up to? Had he handed off the software to Hugh Cartwright yet? Was the team going _insane_ over the fact that they had just become de facto millionaires? Were Devon and Ellie really keeping them calm? Had they left her behind? Had they gotten in trouble? Were they even now sitting in cells just like the one Sarah had spent the afternoon in?

Fear suddenly seemed stronger than curiosity. Ruthlessly, she told herself to shut up. She’d seen no evidence that Chuck and the others had gotten caught or were even considered persons of interest. Nobody had asked her any questions, after all.

Of course, it could be a mind game. A damned effective one.

Well, the first trick of a good con was assume nothing and act like you know everything. Sarah could do that well. She just had to remind herself of that more often now, now that the fear made her heart pound a little faster and her entire body want to quiver.

The door opened, and a voice said, “Hello, Sam.”

Sarah’s first reaction wasn’t to react to the name. Only one person on the planet even called her that anymore, and her relationship with that person was strained to the point of shattering. Besides, the last place Sarah ever expected to find her mother would be in an FBI office in Las Vegas.

So when she figured out the Sam in question was indeed herself, her second instinct was to react, to spring across the room, backwards, a pure _flight_ part of the fear or flight reaction.

She didn’t. It would have shown her hand to her unknown opponent like some wet-behind-the-ears amateur. But even a con with forty years of experience wouldn’t have been able to hide the instinctive jolt. Nor the shocked look when the man who’d said her name stepped into the light and Sarah got a good look at his face.

 _Uh-oh_.

She knew him. Well, not his name, she didn’t know that, but she knew this man. Just like the last time she’d seen him, he was wearing a government agent suit, and even though nine years had passed, she was almost convinced it was exactly the same suit.

“It is Sam, isn’t it?” the man who’d arrested her father asked her now. “Or do you go by Stacee now?”

All of the moisture in Sarah’s mouth had been sucked dry, making her automatic swallow pointless. It took every strand of willpower in her system, but she forced herself to relax and lift her chin. “It’s Sarah now, actually.”

“Oh?” Agent Suit tilted his head as he took a seat across the table from her. In the silence—she certainly wasn’t breathing—the chair legs scraped loudly against the linoleum, discordant and jarring. “Nice name.”

“It means ‘Princess,’“ Sarah said. “I thought it fit.”

“I see.” The man leaned back in his seat, looking completely comfortable to sit there for forever. Sarah’s knee wanted to jiggle. She merely crossed her legs. “You look good, Sam—Sarah. How long’s it been? Ten years?”

“Nine,” Sarah said, though she was positive the man across the table knew that just as well as she did. “You look exactly the same.”

“Thanks. I’ll take that as a compliment.”

“So now what? You heard I was in town and wanted to catch up, for old times’ sake?” Sarah kept her smile pleasant, though it was a struggle. Fear for Chuck had now taken a backseat to fear of this man. She tried not to relive the day of her father’s arrest too often, as it still caused stabs of pain, but sometimes she couldn’t help herself. Every part of that day was etched into her memory with complete clarity, including: “How’s the CIA these days?”

“Oh, you know how it goes.” White flashed as the man smiled. It wasn’t quite predatory, but Sarah still felt like prey, like an object to be collected and caged and admired. Unfortunately, it was a feeling she knew well: every starting crew inevitably inspired this sense of unease, usually until they saw Sarah in action and discovered that the reputation that preceded her hadn’t been a bluff. Chuck had never made her feel that way, which had felt like the end of an era—only now she was right back on square one, apparently. “I don’t have to ask how you are, I don’t think.”

“You don’t?” One eyebrow came up.

“Got yourself into a bit of trouble.”

That was the understatement of the year, but Sarah shrugged. “I’m doing okay.”

“All of your money gone, sitting in the tank thanks to feds, charged with multiple crimes.”

“But I still have my health,” Sarah said.

“And now you’ve gained the interest of the Diablo brothers.”

“Did I? Or did Stacee Kemp?”

The man laughed. “I like your spirit,” he said, tapping the table with his fingertips, one at a time. “It’s why I never chased you nine years ago. You had spunk, and I had to admire that.”

She’d wondered why they had never come after her in those lean early days, but Sarah wasn’t going to reveal that now, years later. “I see.”

“And you’re good. Until Stacee Kemp popped up on our radar, we saw neither hide nor hair of you.” The smile shifted, broadening and sending warning flares through Sarah’s system. “Well, officially.”

Sarah’s stomach dropped like a bad transmission. “Officially,” she repeated.

“We’re the CIA. It’s not like we’re a couple of schmuck detectives keeping a stakeout from a car and enjoying our donuts. When we find a person of interest, there are ways to keep track.”

“Why haven’t you come after me before, then? Why now?”

The man gave an elegant shrug. “You weren’t ready.”

“Ready.” It was getting old, her repeating the man in a flat tone, but Sarah couldn’t help herself. Reality had suspended itself the second her real name had been used, and now everything was foggy and almost dreamlike.

“To be of use, of course. Nine years ago, I made you an offer.”

“You offered to save my life,” Sarah said, almost folding her arms over her chest. She remembered the handcuffs at the last second, and telegraphed the move into crossing her hands, one over the other, at the wrist. “Well, I’ve got news for you. I saved it on my own.”

“And you did well. Made quite a name for yourself—using the name we gave you.”

“What can I say? I’m a fan of irony.”

“Impressive use of that word, considering that your high school diploma is forged.”

“But the 1540 I got on the SAT wasn’t.”

“See? You could have been the best.”

“I do all right for myself,” Sarah said, bristling.

“We can make you better.”

“I’m not interested.”

“No?”

“Nine years ago, I nearly went with you because I was scared, but I’ve been out in the world now. I know what I can and can’t handle. I don’t need your help.”

“You may not, but what happens when Maxine Powell, wanted in three counties in Texas, is discovered to be the same woman as Nell Reinhold from Indiana? And what about Kirsten Wendham? Or Christine Bosley? How about Arlene Butler? Colleen Crawford? Allison—”

Sarah couldn’t help it. As the fear turned the whole world to liquid, seeming to melt the interrogation room around her, she looked up at the camera in the corner.

“The camera’s off,” the man said. “Nobody’s listening in. It’s just you and me.”

It should have been reassuring, but somehow, the simplicity of those words became more of a threat. Sarah had a hard time breathing. _So much for thinking being “unofficially” watched was a bluff_. The man had just named most of her major—and a few minor—identities from the past three years alone.

She felt herself begin to shake and slowly, carefully drew her hands from the table surface, out of the man’s sight. She didn’t want it to seem obvious that she was terrified, a stark fear that made the world seem shimmery and sapped the energy from her limbs. A good con artist considers all the angles, but she hadn’t even thought of this. She’d thought the CIA was no longer interested after that first offer, the one she’d sprinted away from as fast as her legs could carry her, holding that stupid box of her father’s money. To find out that they’d actually been keeping tabs on her?

She’d never felt so violated in her life.

“I can make all of this go away,” the man continued, perhaps sensing he had treed his prey. “One word from me, and all of that disappears.”

“And if I say no?”

“You’re in FBI custody for trying to steal top-level government software. Twice. Boston Techtronics won’t appreciate being played. You’re not in a position to say no.”

Sarah squeezed her hands together so tight that she actually felt the circulation to the fingers cut off, but her voice was level when she said, “I don’t deal well with threats.”

“Who said anything about threats? I offered to save your life once, I’m offering to do it again.”

“You’re offering to offer to save my life?” Sarah said before she could get a hold on her smartass side.

The man’s smile was beginning to fade.

_When I was a kid, I used to watch these movies, you know: old school action movies where the hero could do anything. Fight the bad guy, save the day…_

Sarah pushed Chuck’s voice, the inherent warmth in it, to the side. “Somehow I don’t get the feeling that this is out of any sense of heroism,” she said.

“Could be. You’ve got a great offer in front of you. Clean slate, cushy job. I meant it when I said your father trained you well, and that we can do better. You could be one of the best.”

The words “clean slate” were like a siren’s song to her blood. Though there were cons in her past where the people never realized they’d been had, Sarah knew she had enemies, and she knew that those enemies could come back to haunt her. One slip, one missed step, and the FBI would finally have the clue they needed to piece together her life.

To have all of that wiped away? It would solve all of her problems.

_We do this, and you promise me you’ll get out of the con game for good. You become just another working stiff like the rest of society. It doesn’t have to be here, but no more stealing from people after this._

Technically, she’d be keeping her promise to Chuck, as what the man across the table from her was offering was a job. She’d be a “working stiff.” But if that job used the skills her father had given her… She loved Jack Burton dearly, she did, but he hadn’t taught her anything but how to lighten other people’s pockets, and how to do it with charm.

And she was so, _so_ tired of that. Sure, it brought on a thrill at first, but she had been extremely lucky, she knew. The time she’d slipped up, she had run into the one person on the planet willing to look past her past and help her out. It was like winning the lottery.

Nobody ever won the lottery twice.

But what the hell did it matter if Chuck’s ploy didn’t work? She’d be in prison, and if this strange man had anything to say about it, she’d be in prison for a long, long time. Maybe, if she took the offer…

“What happens if I say yes?” she asked.

“We give you a new name. Sarah Walker disappears.”

“Completely?”

Another shrug, still elegant. Sarah’s trained eye told her that this man had had some sort of training himself, military most likely. Though he did look comfortable in the suit, as he had nine years before, so he’d been behind a desk for a while. “You’d be a CIA agent. We can’t have you running into anybody you know.”

Sarah’s stomach fell all over again. If she agreed to this man’s offer, she would get her clean slate, she would fulfill her promise to Chuck.

But she would lose Chuck.

_You’re going to lose him either way. They don’t give conjugal visits to boyfriends you’ve had for less than a month._

So she could take her chances, hope the DA was willing to give her immunity for the Diablo brothers and Scopes, and risk prison, or she could take the offer of a stranger, keep doing what her father had taught her—only with the law on her side. Steal and con for the government and—she sneaked a look at the CIA pin on Graham’s lapel now—possibly even kill. Could she kill somebody? She’d often wondered, thinking of conmen who had gone wrong in the head and whose cons had ended with the loss of life.

She had never killed anybody. With the exception of Connor after she’d tumbled out the window, she’d never wanted to.

Either way, she would lose Chuck, but…

Chuck could still visit her in prison. Sure, there wouldn’t be anything conjugal, but she could see him, and see his smile through the glass, and she would eventually get out. Maybe.

“You know, I really respected your father,” the man said. “He had a real gift. It almost hurt to arrest him, but I did it for his own good. The people who were after him could have hurt you, too.”

“They didn’t,” Sarah said.

“An inexperienced young woman out on her own in the world, they really could have.”

Sarah twitched her right shoulder, just a fraction. “My father always told me one thing about conning people,” she said, leaning in a little despite herself. “The bigger the lie, the easier it is to believe. The right word whispered into the right ear, and people will believe anything. And people believed Jack Burton was dangerous all right. So they left his daughter alone.”

The man stared for a minute before he gathered her meaning, and then he did the last thing she expected: he threw his head back and laughed. “I’d wondered,” he said, grinning broadly, and there was nothing possessive or predatory in his smile now. “Never saw Jack Burton as a dangerous man, myself, so I wondered where that came from.”

Sarah gave a sarcastic half-bow. “I can take care of myself, Agent…I never got your name.”

“No, you didn’t.” The man tapped his fingers again, one at a time, the beats cascading into each other. “You’re going to turn me down.”

“There are things I can’t leave behind.”

“You’re willing to risk prison for those things?”

It scared her so much that all of her organs turned to water, but Sarah nodded, once. “It’s nothing personal. I’m sure you’re very nice. But I…don’t think I’m qualified for what you’re offering any longer. I don’t want to be that person anymore. In fact, I _wouldn’t_ be that person anymore, if things had just gone according to plan.”

“That’s the funny thing about plans. They never work,” the man said, and reached into the front pocket of his jacket. He withdrew a business card and set it on the table, in front of Sarah. “If you change your mind, we’d love to have you, in any capacity.” He rose to his feet, buttoning his jacket and gave her a smart nod. “Try to stay out of trouble in prison.”

Sarah suddenly wanted to cry, but all she did was nod back. The man left without a word. The minute the door clicked shut behind him, she indulged herself, and laid her forehead against the cool veneer of the interrogation table. She squeezed her eyes closed for a moment against the flood of hot tears, breathing deep until the need to cry had died to embers.

Chuck’s plan could still work. There was a possibility that the man in the government agent suit wasn’t going to turn over all of her information to the Feds, now that she’d turned down his job offer, though she doubted it. He hadn’t come after nine years before, and that had been a stroke of luck. But could she really get that lucky twice?

She lifted her head when the door opened again, afraid that the man would come back, that he would offer a second time and she wouldn’t be strong enough to say no. But it was only her new friend Agent Grey, this time carrying a file folder. She’d shed the no-nonsense suit jacket for shirtsleeves and trousers, and she had her FBI badge dangling from her neck on a chain.

“You must be some hot stuff,” she said as she took a seat in the chair the man had vacated. “I don’t think our humble offices here in Vegas have seen such high and mighty patronage before.”

Sarah felt a line appear between her eyebrows as she gave the agent a confused look. “What are you talking about?”

“Not many suspects are deemed important enough for a visit from the director of the CIA.” Agent Grey flipped open the file folder while Sarah stared at her. “Must’ve been bad, whatever you did.”

Her hands were openly shaking now, but Sarah didn’t care. She lifted them to pick up the business card. Surely Agent Grey hadn’t meant the actual Director?

But no, there it was. Langston Graham, Director, Central Intelligence Agency.

It was all Sarah could do not to twist her wrists, rest her head on her hands, and moan.

In front of her, Grey picked up her pencil and tapped it on the table, resting her elbows on the edge of the table so she could lean forward. “You’ll have to tell me about it after I get your testimony.”

“My testimony?”

“We’ve talked to Jorge and Javier Diablo and the others. Surprise, surprise, none of them want to really talk about the fact that we intercepted a communiqué from their computer implicating them in the theft of software from a little company called Boston Techtronics.” Tap, tap, tap went the pencil, though Grey remained as pleasant and soft-spoken as ever. “A company that has charges out against, of all people, one Stacee Kemp. That’s a hell of a coincidence.”

“I never stole any software,” Sarah said.

“Uh-huh. See, the problem is, I’ve got some photographs here.” Agent Grey began putting grainy pictures in front of Sarah, one at a time. Sarah hardly had to glance at them to recognize them. They were print-outs from what felt like another lifetime, when she had worked in the Petersen building as the secretary for Morton, Platte, and Gideon. There were shots from inside the elevator, as she rode with either Connor or Scopes—and he really did look so completely different once he’d cleaned up, that it took Sarah a second to recognize him in the pictures.

“You know Connor Morton, Bertrand Scopes, and Terrence Willoughby. Boston Techtronics filed these charges against you over two weeks ago. You’ve had two weeks to clear your name. Why haven’t you?”

She had to work to make her shrug seem light and airy this time. Her hands were still shaking. “I didn’t think anybody would believe me that I never stole any software.”

“You got an alibi for the night in question?”

Sarah opened her mouth to answer, but a cell phone rang, startling her. Grey flicked a glance at her before she rose and pulled out her phone, moving over to the corner. She stood with her back to Sarah, talking in a low voice.

Of course, it was a small room, and Sarah had always had fantastic hearing.

“Yes, sir, I’m talking with her now.” A pause. “Mm-hmm. We’re just getting to the—oh? They did? Yes, sir, of course I understand.” This time, the pause was longer, accompanied by some nodding on Grey’s part, though the person on the other end of the line couldn’t see it. “All right. I’ll do that.”

When the FBI agent hung up the phone and turned, Sarah was very innocently studying the photographs on the table in front of her as though they didn’t make her vaguely ill to think she had ever been that naïve.

“Well, Ms. Kemp,” Agent Grey said, sitting down. “Change of plans.”

Sarah looked up quickly. “What?”

“Seems Boston Techtronics think they might have been mistaken. Charges against you have been dropped.” Grey’s smile quirked a little to the left, but her eyes never changed. She clearly didn’t like what she was about to do. “And my boss doesn’t think you’re worth much trouble. Small fish and all.”

“Very small. Practically minuscule,” Sarah said, though all of the oxygen in the room had mysteriously vanished and her head felt strangely light.

“So I’m supposed to get your testimony about what happened today, and I’ll need you to stay in touch.”

“That’s it?” Sarah blinked.

“Small fish,” Grey repeated, and she looked like she had tasted something foul. “Not worth my time, and it’s not my call who the DA plays golf with. But with your help, maybe we can actually get something real on the Diablo brothers. So walk me through what happened today at this,” she checked her notes, “Priest-Con. Start from the beginning.”

Sarah’s hand nearly crushed the business card she held as she nearly leapt to comply.

Chuck’s plan had worked.


	25. Sarah the Free Woman

“Stay in touch,” Agent Grey repeated and finally unlocked Sarah’s handcuffs. Even though the move gave the other woman far too much power, Sarah rubbed her wrists. The metal bracelets had chafed. No wonder her father recommended never getting arrested. She raised an eyebrow when Grey indicated another agent standing in the hallway outside of interrogation. Definitely an underling. “Agent Pennyworth will see to your effects and escort you out.”

“Well, thank you very much for your time,” Sarah said with such sincerity that Grey blinked. Sarah was being a smartass, but she was so relieved that her kneecaps had turned to gelatin. She indulged Grey one final smile before she followed the shorter Pennyworth down the hall. It was entirely different now that she wasn’t in cuffs, she couldn’t help but think. The gray walls no longer seemed too close or oppressing. In fact, they felt like a tunnel.

_A tunnel to freedom. God, I’m cheesy._

She wanted to dance and since Agent Pennyworth wasn’t watching, nearly did. Only the weight of the business card dragging down her pocket stopped her.

The CIA knew everything she had done and they wouldn’t take her rejection kindly. Or would they? Graham had seemed almost affectionate, amused even. Perhaps, if she just kept her nose clean, so to speak, the CIA might not come after her.

_We’d love to have you, in any capacity._

Maybe there could be a deal worked out there, if they did come after her.

“Here we are,” Agent Pennyworth said, and Sarah realized that she had daydreamed her way through the office. They were standing in the processing zone, an area she recognized as she had been processed in earlier, her clothing checked, her possessions taken. Of course, there was paperwork to sign—very little in life didn’t involve paperwork—but in what seemed like record time, Sarah was holding her burn phone and her wallet with the Stacee Kemp credentials, all of which had gotten a little soggy when she’d jumped off a building and into a pond. She pocketed the latter, bid Agent Pennyworth a good day, and got the hell out of Dodge. It was time to find Chuck, and the rest of her team.

She waited until she’d exited the FBI headquarters before digging out her cell phone, though every step seemed to take centuries and every hallway to the door seemed endless. A lifetime of pulling cons, however, would allow her to do nothing when the FBI could be watching. Hitting the open air, even though it was early September in the desert and still boiling hot in the evening, felt like a long drink of years of thirst.

She immediately dug in her pocket and pulled out her phone. Chuck was second on the speed-dial, but she didn’t even have time to press the button.

“Sarah!”

Her head shot up. Striding toward her, his long legs eating up whole patches of sidewalk without pause, was Chuck. He’d left the door of his cab open, and Sarah could see the annoyed driver through the window, but she didn’t care. She leaped at Chuck, laughing. She kissed him, enthusiastically, even though he’d claimed not to be into PDA, he kissed her back.

“We did it!”

“I was coming to bail you out,” Chuck said, his grin almost too wide for his face. He had yet to let go of her, but Sarah didn’t mind.

“No need. Charges dropped.”

Chuck’s eyes widened. “Really?”

“Yup. I’m a free—” Sarah broke off with a gasp as Chuck’s hug nearly crushed her. He swung her around this time, and she didn’t care that they were in the middle of Las Vegas, in front of the federal building. She put her arms around Chuck’s neck and beamed. “Woman. I was going to say, I’m a free woman.”

“This is so great! We have to tell the others, they’ll never believe it.”

“They’re still here?”

“Yup, and nobody’s blown their money yet, to my everlasting shock. Though I think that’s because Ellie and Awesome pretty much handcuffed them to the suite. C’mon.” Chuck grabbed her hand and pulled her back to the cab, nearly bumping his head on the side because he kept sneaking grins at her. She laughed and didn’t let go for the entire ride back to the hotel. The cab driver was apparently used to overly happy couples—this was Vegas, not Reno, after all—since he didn’t comment.

“How’s everybody doing?” Sarah asked when they came up for air a few minutes later.

“I think they’re in shock. But they’ll be happy to see you.”

Sarah paused. “Really?”

“Are you kidding? You’re one of us now, as scary as that is.” Chuck gave her a mock-pitying look. “You poor thing. You should’ve escaped when you could.”

“Never,” Sarah said, her face hurting from the sheer amount of smiling. “I’m happy here.”

“I’m glad.”

Chuck hadn’t exaggerated, she discovered. They knocked on the door of the suite they’d used to prepare for their smash-and-grab operation earlier that day. What had been a tense, nervous atmosphere had dissipated into sheer joy; Ellie answered the door and immediately pounced on Sarah with a hug. From there, there were hugs and handshakes from everybody, even Harry Tang. Chuck hadn’t been lying: they really were happy to see her. Sure, Lester’s hug went on for a few seconds too long and Devon had to pry the Buy More worker off of Sarah, but she’d never had such an enthusiastic greeting.

She really was one of them, she thought, looking around in amazement as they surrounded her, chattering so that their words tumbled over each other, becoming a cloud of noise. Sure, the fact that she’d made the group millionaires helped, but some part of her told her that even without the money, she’d be getting this same welcome.

Across the crowd, her eyes met Chuck’s. He gave her a little smile and a half-shrug as if to say, “Told you so,” and she conceded the point with a giggle and a nod.

  


* * *

  


Several hours later, Sarah raised her eyebrows when Chuck rose to his feet, but he merely waved a hand to indicate that she should stay put. “Need a refill. You good?”

“I’m great,” Sarah said, meaning it. She’d had a couple of glasses of wine, enough so that her head buzzed pleasantly, and she and Ellie were making inroads into the Nachos Supreme they’d ordered from room service, calories be damned. On the TV screen, Awesome’s avatar was wailing a solo next to Anna’s on guitar, while Morgan accompanied them on the drums and Lester took vocals. Skip Johnson bobbed his head in time to the music. Big Mike was on the couch across the room, talking to Harry Tang, of all people. Jeff, at the bar, was still mixing drinks; nobody was going near there again after Morgan had fallen to the floor, gasping that his taste buds were now missing, burned away, but that didn’t deter Jeff’s efforts.

It was an odd scene, Sarah knew, especially for a woman used to high-priced parties and society elite, but it fit. Though, to be fair, the topic of the night had been how everybody was going to spend their money, which _did_ fit in those high-priced parties and the society elite.

Still, she smiled and held out her hand, grabbing Chuck’s. “Just great,” she said. “Hurry back, you’re supposed to teach me how to work the guitar toy-thingie.”

“As much as it hurts my gamer heart to hear you call it a toy, yes ma’am.” Chuck was smiling as he leaned down to kiss her.

Ellie, on the overstuffed recliner next to the couch so they could balance the plate of nachos on the table between the furniture, waited until Chuck had wandered off before she said, “Aww.”

“Shut up,” Sarah told her, though she couldn’t stop smiling.

“I wish _my_ boyfriend kissed me every time he went to get a refill. We can’t all be that special.” Ellie smirked as she loaded up a chip with cheese and salsa.

Devon’s head whipped toward them. “What was that, babe?”

“Just play your game. We’re having girl talk.”

But Devon was evidently undeterred. “Uh-uh. I distinctly heard you say you weren’t getting enough affection. And that is not awesome.” Devon pulled the guitar controller off and tossed it aside.

“Hey!” The others playing the game let out various protests, and notes began to crash across the screen since Devon had stopped playing, but Devon ignored them all as he pulled Ellie to her feet and made a huge production of dipping her backwards. Even while she giggled, he gave her a kiss that could have come straight off of a silver screen. A chorus of cheering and jeering erupted, depending on the source. Skip put his fingers in his mouth and let out a wolf-whistle. Sarah laughed and clapped, and vacated the couch so that Ellie and Devon could have it.

They were all nuts, and she couldn’t help but love it, though that might have been the wine talking.

Before she could sit down in the chair Ellie had abandoned, though, Anna grabbed her arm. The others had paused the game in Devon’s absence. “You can fill in for Awesome!”

“Wh-what?” The guitar controller was shoved at her, and Sarah instinctively tried to back away, only to run the backs of her knees into the coffee table behind her. She swallowed. “Oh, no, I’m good. I don’t know how to work that.”

“It’s really easy.” Morgan rose to his feet to show her how to work the controller, and she raised her eyebrows. “Awesome is only on beginner, too, so you’ll be fine finishing out the song. You just hit one of these buttons,” and he pointed at the brightly colored row on the guitar’s neck, “when the color pops up on the screen. And you strum this bar, too.” He wiggled the strummer in the middle of the controller, and handed it over. “At the same time. It’s easy, though, I promise.”

Though she wanted to protest, Sarah found herself dragged in. Morgan was right; after a few tries, she eventually started hitting the notes as they flashed to the end of the screen. And she began to understand why they liked this game so much. With Lester letting out his inner rock star on the mic and the others gamely keeping up, it was _fun_. They talked her into two more songs, and even let her pick one (nobody groaned when she picked Blondie, just because she didn’t recognize anybody else and she was blonde). They also let her try the drums, though she adamantly refused to sing.

It was a good twenty minutes before she looked around and noticed that Chuck had never returned from getting his refill.

“Skip, I think this is all yours,” she said when the song had finished, and handed over the controller. The gangly nerd gave her a smile and a thumbs-up.

She set off to find Chuck, but before she got four steps, she was waylaid by none other than Big Mike. Sarah drew up short. She and Big Mike had never spoken one-on-one—or at all—before. She didn’t have the first clue why he would be approaching her now.

“Don’t want to take up too much of your time,” Big Mike said, holding up his hands for peace. Or perhaps that was default gesture. “I just wanted to tell you how impressed I am.”

“Oh,” Sarah said. “Um, thank you.”

“And I’m not just saying that because we’re now worth more than the gross profits of my store in a year. You’ve got a way with people. It’s a gift, and you’ve done a good job with it.”

Twin feelings of awkwardness and warmth rose. “Uh. Well, thank you, B—Mike, but it was mostly Chuck. He’s the people person. I’m just…good with details.”

“Modest, too,” Big Mike went on, giving her an approving nod. “It’s been a real pleasure serving on your crew, Miss Walker. Anytime you need anything, all you need to do is ask.”

“The pleasure’s all mine,” Sarah said, shaking the hand he offered. “Wait, are you heading out?”

“Buy More’s not gonna run itself.” Big Mike raised his voice to address the whole room. “I expect you yahoos at work on time the day after tomorrow. Just because you’re rich now doesn’t mean you can slack off.” He nodded his farewell to Devon, Ellie, and Sarah, gave the rest of the group one final threatening glare, and left.

 _Well, that’s one person that understands the money isn’t immediate, not if they want to keep it_. Sarah wasn’t looking forward to telling the room full of nerds that they would have to go back to their ordinary lives for at least a little while. She shrugged, told herself she’d deal with that later, and went to find Chuck. He’d left the suite completely, it looked like.

That was strange. As she’d told Big Mike, Chuck was the people person of their duo. Maybe he’d gone outside to take a phone call?

The hallway was empty. And so was, when Sarah checked it, their room.

Now, she was starting to worry. They’d just conned two of the most dangerous men on the planet, after all. She should have kept a better eye on Chuck, and she would have to warn everybody to be vigilant. After all, the Diablos had connections. They could possibly track Sarah’s crew down, since she’d given testimony against them, though they’d covered their tracks well.

 _No need to panic yet_ , her brain chided her. _Maybe Chuck went downstairs to gamble or order something from the restaurant. Quit being a worrywart._

Still, she couldn’t quite quell the nerves as she pulled out her burn phone and hit the speed dial. Hopefully, if Chuck was indeed downstairs, he would hear the ringtone over the casino noise, and he would put to rest her fears…

She needn’t have worried. Chuck had obviously heard the ringtone, because she did now, too. It floated down the hall.

It was a second, but Chuck picked up. “Hey, Sarah, what’s up?” His words were slurred a little.

“Where are you?” She looked left and right, but the hallway was empty, and she doubted she could have heard the ringtone so clearly through the hotel room doors. The rooms she’d booked for everybody were down at the end of the hall, near the stairwell. “You OK, Chuck?”

“I’m fine. Just thinking. And where am I? Um, it’s a little hard to explain…”

Sarah pushed open the door. “You’re in the stairwell,” she said into her phone.

He craned his neck from where he was sitting on the top step to look back at her, and the smile spread slowly over his face. “Yes,” he said, talking into the phone like her, “yes, I am. God, you’re pretty.”

“And you’re drunk.” She hung up her phone, but couldn’t resist running her hand over Chuck’s hair as she sat down next to him. He was clutching an open bottle of champagne in his fist, which explained the slurred speech. It was only after she had sat down, her shoulder against Chuck’s, that she paused. “Did you want to be alone?”

“No, it’s fine. I’ve just been out here, you know, thinking.”

Sarah looked at the echo-y concrete walls all around them. “In the stairwell.”

“Seemed like a good idea at the time.” When Chuck offered her the bottle of champagne, she shrugged to herself and took a swig. Why not? She wasn’t going anywhere. To prove it, she rested her head on Chuck’s shoulder. “I think I’m only just now coming down off of the adrenaline rush from earlier, you know?”

“It was a very, very full day.”

“A great day, minus the bit with you getting arrested.”

Sarah had to smile. “The best,” she said. “I got to wear combat boots and look fabulous.”

“Not nearly as fabulous as me,” Chuck said, and Sarah nearly fell off the step, giggling. She threaded her arm through Chuck’s. Chuck picked up her hand to play with her fingers. “Our costumes were pretty kick-ass.”

“Mm-hmm.”

“I guess for Comic-Con, we’ll have to find a new shtick.”

“Or you can go without me,” Sarah said, yawning mightily. When she could talk again, she added, “I’m a bit conned out. Either type of con.”

“Fair enough.” Chuck continued to play with her fingers, but the fact that he was openly concentrating on that told Sarah it wasn’t an idle movement anymore. He was stalling.

She shifted her head on his shoulder to get more comfortable. “What’re you thinking about?”

He took another pull from the champagne bottle. This time, when he offered it to Sarah, she shook her head no, and waited for him to speak. “Awhile back, back before we even made that hellaciously long drive to San Antonio, Ellie asked you something.”

The wine and the elation of being a free woman and the fact that it had been a long—if great—day made her memory a little unclear. Sarah scrunched her brow as she tried to figure out what he meant. “She did?”

“She asked if your real name was Sarah.”

“Oh.” Nerves began to flutter along her stomach lining. Sarah lifted her head.

“And the FBI, the Diablos, they all called you Stacee Kemp, right?”

“Yes.” Where was he going with this?

He kept his gaze on her hand. “When we met, you were already on the con. You had the office set up and everything. So you were already Stacee.” Now Chuck did look at her, and he seemed solemn, contemplative. “Why did you introduce yourself to me as Sarah?”

“I…” Sarah trailed off with a puzzled laugh. When she realized why she would have simply introduced herself as Sarah, she winced. “I, just…Chuck…”

He eyed her. “Must be bad.”

Sarah bit her lip. Should she lie? She wanted to, desperately, but she’d made a promised to herself. So she took a deep breath, and said, “You were just the tech guy. At the time, I didn’t think you were important enough to con.”

Chuck’s face fell. It was only for a fraction of a second, and he managed to put up a neutral expression quickly, but Sarah caught the movement. It made her feel awful inside. When Chuck nodded and said, “I see,” she only felt worse.

“At the time, I said. And that changed,” she said, turning her hand over so that she could twine her fingers through Chuck’s. “You know that, right? When I saw you in the bar, you weren’t just the tech guy. You were Chuck, and you were cute, and funny, and sure, fun to tease, and I was glad you knew me as Sarah because I think spelling Stacee with two Es instead of a Y is a little weird, so it all worked out that I underestimated you at first, if you really think about it.”

“You’re rambling,” Chuck said, his voice wondering. “You’re actually rambling, and I’ve got to admit, it’s really cute, even if I thought that was my job.”

“I can’t let you have all of the fun,” Sarah muttered, her face beginning to heat, which only brought on more embarrassment. “And now I’m turning red. Just great.” She pressed her face into Chuck’s shoulder this time, and felt him begin to shake with laughter.

“Hey, what’s this? C’mon, none of that. I’m glad I know you as Sarah, too. Spelling Stacee with two Es is weird.”

“Shut up,” Sarah said, the words muffled against Chuck’s shirt. He’d showered after they’d come back to the hotel, and he smelled good. Since he was grinning down at her, still holding the champagne bottle, she changed her position and rested her chin on the shoulder. She suddenly felt shy, which was odd considering that they’d had sex at least twice in the past 24 hours, as well as swindled conmen out of millions, and one of them had gone to jail. But the shyness still spread. “I’m really glad we called the Nerd Herd to install the systems that day.”

“I am, too. Also, relieved. I mean, where would you be without somebody to fulfill your Chuck timer needs? What happens when you hear the ding?”

Sarah rolled her eyes, but she was still amused. “I’ll ‘ding’ you.”

“Oh, god, I hope so.” Chuck waggled his eyebrows at her, and she snickered again—a noise that cut off when Chuck abruptly rose to his feet.

“What?” she asked, blinking up at Chuck. He was still holding onto her hand. “Right now?”

He just smiled and pulled her to her feet. But instead of leading her out of the stairwell and back toward their room, he put his arms around her, still holding the bottle and her hand, and began to sway.

She had no choice but to sway along. “Um, Chuck?”

“Yes?”

“What are we doing?”

“Isn’t it obvious? We’re dancing.”

“No, I got that part.” Though she hadn’t, really. She was mystified about the prolonged, moving hug. But as she’d thought to herself during the con earlier, there were still a thousand things to discover about Chuck Bartowski. “I guess I meant, why? Why are we dancing?”

“Because I’m drunk, and we’re not going anywhere, and today was a success even if it means we have to deal some of the least likely people in the world getting rich. And the hero in all those movies I used to watch always gets at least one dance, and this is my dance.” Chuck actually began humming, and she didn’t recognize the tune, but that wasn’t surprising. She barely recognized any tunes that weren’t the old fifties songs her dad had sung on long car trips.

“We’re in a stairwell,” she felt the need to point out.

“Are we?” He leaned back, but didn’t look around. Those eyes of his, smiling now like the rest of his face, never left hers. “Didn’t notice.”

“Well, at least we’re giving some bored security worker a show,” Sarah mused, and giggled when Chuck spun her out, still humming. “I think I’m going to have to get you drunk more often.”

“You should. I’m such an easy drunk.”

“Evidently.”

“Or maybe,” Chuck went on, obviously deep in thought over it, “I’m just easy.”

“The fact that we’re both still wearing pants kind of proves otherwise, but sure. You’re easy.”

Chuck brightened. “That’s the nicest thing you’ve said to me all night.”

Sarah laughed and kissed him. “Possibly too easy,” she said.

“Nah, considering all that we had to do to get here, I’d say this is earned.” They continued to rotate on the landing of the stairs, which weren’t as well air-conditioned as the rest of the building and oddly warm despite the late hour of the night. In another lightning-fast change, Chuck’s face went sober. “I’m going back to school,” he announced out of the blue.

Sarah blinked. “You are?”

“Yeah.” Chuck let her go and stepped back, bending at the waist to too-carefully set the champagne bottle on the floor at his feet. When he straightened, he was digging in his pocket. “When I gave Hugh Cartwright the software at the airport, he asked me how I had done it, how I had set up the alert to let the FBI know the software was being accessed by Connor and Scopes and all, so I told him. And he was really impressed.” He scratched the back of his head, looking at her from under his lashes, but they hadn’t talked about what Chuck would say to Cartwright at the airport. Sarah waved him on. She was curious. “He said if the security thing didn’t work out, Boston Techtronics could use a guy like me. He gave me his card.”

He showed it to Sarah. She raised her eyebrows. “Wow,” she said. The warm surge behind her sternum, she recognized as pride that somebody else would be able to see what she had, almost from the beginning, but it deflated quickly. “Chuck, that’s awesome, but…”

“I know,” Chuck said. “They know me as William Cahill. It’d be hard to explain. But it still—it got me thinking.”

“About going back to school?”

“I was less than a semester away from being finished with my degree when Bryce—when my friend got me kicked out.” Chuck sat down on the top step again. Apparently the dancing portion of the evening was over. “You said I was better than the Buy More, and today, I realized that. I’ve spent five years of my life doing nothing, and I don’t want that anymore.”

“I wouldn’t say you’ve done nothing,” Sarah said, taking her seat by Chuck again. “Today proves that. I mean, look at the people around you.”

“Are you including Jeff and Lester in that?”

“And Harry Tang,” Sarah said, managing to keep a straight face. She let a giggle escape when Chuck grimaced and reached for the alcohol. She stopped him with a hand on his wrist. “But those people looked to you as a leader today, and you didn’t let them down. So saying you’ve done nothing isn’t right.”

“Still.” Chuck fiddled with a corner of the label that was peeling away from the bottle.

“But you are better than the Buy More,” Sarah went on, “so I’m happy for you. Though I really hope you’re not moving into a dorm because I hear those beds are tiny.”

“Ha,” Chuck said, and he waggled his eyebrows at her in a way that made parts of her turn to liquid as always. “You didn’t seem too picky the other night. Took us how many times to make it into an actual bed, again?”

Sarah tried to look dignified, which was of course ruined by the fact that she still couldn’t stop smiling. It was happiness, and pride, and a thousand things mingled with the sips of champagne she’d stolen from Chuck and the wine she’d had earlier. “I have standards, and dorm sex had better be out of this world to meet those. But I was actually talking about you and your lanky frame over here. Your feet would be hanging off the bed.”

“Uh-huh,” Chuck said, swigging more champagne. “Sure you were.”

“What? I don’t think about sex all the time, you know.”

“That’s a crying shame.” Chuck slung an arm over her shoulders, pulling her closer; in response, Sarah moved until she was nearly sitting in his lap again. She tugged the bottle away from him and kissed him, slowly. It was fueled by nothing but relief, relief that she wasn’t rotting in some FBI cell or en route to Langley, relief that it was over.

Chuck tasted like the champagne. It was new, and heady, and she took her time, enjoying the texture and the taste and the _rightness_ of that moment. Chuck felt looser, which might have been the alcohol, but he also seemed relaxed as she grabbed his shoulder to keep her balance and to keep from tumbling down the stairs. He seemed to realize that was a problem as the arm around her shoulders dropped, hooking around her waist, his thumb nudging up under her shirt and rubbing idly against the bared skin there. Goosebumps rose, and she couldn’t suppress the shiver.

“You know,” Chuck said, shifting a bit, “you’re really not proving your case here.”

“I don’t care.” She bit his earlobe, gently, and felt Chuck tremble. “But unless we want to give the bored security guard more of a show than we bargained for, we might want to move this inside.”

“In a minute. I’m comfortable here.”

“Suit yourself.”

And the glory of it was that they didn’t need to hurry. It wasn’t like too many people would be using the stairwell at this hour, and none of their party would think to look for them if they both disappeared. Sarah had never fully understood how obsessed with sex a bunch of nerds could get, but she couldn’t help but be grateful for it now. Except…

She drew back, and a line appeared between Chuck’s eyebrows as he regarded her. “Damn it,” he said without rancor. “Knew I should’ve just ‘yes, let’s go inside’ when you said that. What’s up?”

“You know what? We can talk about it later.”

“Great, and now I’m going to be curious.”

Sarah smirked. “Bet I can make you forget all about it,” she said, gently closing her teeth on the edge of his jaw.

He laughed and grabbed her hands, which had started roaming. “I don’t doubt that for a second, but what is it? Is something bothering you? Am I doing something wrong?”

“No, no, it’s nothing like that.” Still, Sarah suddenly felt the need for some space, so she eased back until she was sitting next to Chuck again. He kept his arm around her waist, and she took a deep breath to still the nerves that had begun to flutter again. “You weren’t the only one that got a job offer today, Chuck.”

“For serious?” Chuck tilted his head, and his brow furrowed. “When did you get a job offer? I mean, we weren’t—you were at the—wait a second, the FBI wants you to come work for them? That’s awesome!”

“Erm, not exactly the FBI.” Sarah dug into the pocket of her jeans. She’d changed out of the Starbuck costume and had showered off the reek of federal building earlier, but she’d transferred the business card Graham had given her. She handed the card over to Chuck now, and waited for it.

Indeed, he didn’t disappoint. His eyebrows shot into his hairline and his mouth dropped open. “The CI—the _director_ of the CIA offered you a job?”

“Yes.”

“That’s so _cool_.” Chuck blinked at the business card in his hand and gave her an excited look.

“How did you meet the director of the CIA? I thought the FBI arrested you.”

“It’s kind of a long story, but he wants me to come work for them.”

“You said yes, please, and can I have a plane like James Bond’s while I’m at it, didn’t you?”

Sarah took another deep breath. “I said no.”

“What? _Why_?”

“Because for me to take that job, Sarah Walker would have to disappear. For forever.”

Slowly, she saw the realization sink in, the stages of it overtaking Chuck’s face. He closed his mouth, his eyebrows lowering. That twitch started in his left cheek, but all he said was, “Oh.”

“They were offering me a clean slate, but the price was a little bit high for me.” Sarah gently took the business card back before Chuck could crush it. When they got back to L.A. and she found a place of her own, she’d hide it, though she hoped she would never have to use it. “So I turned him down and said I’ll take my chances.”

“You did?” Chuck was still staring at her in shock.

“What can I say? A good crew leader never abandons her crew.” Sarah quirked a shoulder and chuckled when Chuck crushed her for the second time that day. “I guess you’re pleased about that,” she said when she could breathe again.

“A little disappointed, actually.” Chuck rose to his feet, taking the mostly empty bottle with him and holding a hand down to help her out, too.

She felt a stab of fear. “Disappointed how?”

“Well, I hear spy sex is the best type of sex, but—ouch, hey!”

“And how would you know that?”

“It’s _rumor_ , Sarah, not fact. Also, ouch. No beating the boyfriend.”

“It was a nudge at best,” Sarah said, though Chuck referring to himself as her boyfriend made something trill inside. Finally, she thought, she was just another normal citizen, enjoying what could now be considered a normal weekend in Vegas, with her normal boyfriend. And it felt _amazing_. Still, she bit her lip and looked up at Chuck. “A small nudge, at that.”

“Like getting hit by a tank,” Chuck said, rubbing his arm and giving her a mock-wounded look. “So what’re you going to do, now that you’ve turned down the CIA? Where does one go from there?”

“Don’t know, but I look forward to finding out.”

Chuck held the door open and they wandered down the hallway. Neither of them spoke about where they were going, but Sarah figured they both knew. Indeed, she leaned back against the wall beside the door while Chuck searched his pockets for the key. He was fumbling, the alcohol obviously affecting him. And with the way his hair fell over his forehead, the curls disheveled by her hands and the long day, his shirt likewise rumpled, he was absolutely adorable.

She didn’t hear a _ding_ , but that didn’t matter. Just as Chuck found his keycard, she stepped forward, framed his face with her hands, and kissed him, a little more deeply than she had in the stairwell, a little more intensely. It wasn’t urgency, but she wanted him to understand that she wasn’t going anywhere, and that she was grateful, and relieved, and happy, almost deliriously so. The kiss gained intensity; she heard a hollow _thunk_ and felt something hit the ground by her feet, followed by splashing noises, but she didn’t care what it was, not when Chuck was kissing her like that, his tongue tangling her with hers, one hand sneaking under her shirt, his body radiating heat like a miniature sun. She heard his other hand trying to get the key into the card reader, the plastic keycard clicking against the doorframe and the reader, hopeless. Her lips curved against hers, but she didn’t offer any help. Her hands were too busy going for the buttons of his shirt.

Thankfully, Chuck finally got the door open, and they stumbled backwards together, pulling greedily at clothes and laughing at themselves and their own clumsiness. Chuck tripped over his own jeans, hopping up and down on one foot to try and pull them off, and Sarah fell backwards on the bed, giggling so hard that she swore she felt a rib crack. When Chuck growled and pounced on top of her, foot still trapped in the leg of his jeans, the giggles only came harder. Forget the CIA, Boston Techtronics, Priest-Con, the newfound wealth of her crew, all the problems that lay in store, forget all of it, she thought before Chuck’s mouth began moving southward and she literally forgot everything. She was Sarah, Chuck Bartowski’s girlfriend (though they technically hadn’t had that amazing second date yet), and she was happy.


	26. Sarah

“No, Jeff, for the last time, I don’t care how great they sound together, putting Yanni next to Bruce Springsteen is not something we do.” Sarah honestly didn’t know why nerd herders were required to stock shelves with the rest of the green shirts, as they were technically a different division within the Buy More corporation, but Big Mike had given his orders, and it was her job to follow them. She adjusted her vest now and gave Jeff a deadpan look. “Bruce starts with a ‘B,’ and Yanni goes in the ‘Y’ section. You know this. I know you know this. You did pass kindergarten, after all.”

At least, she hoped he had. There were some days she couldn’t be sure.

“The system is lame,” Jeff said.

“And yet.”

“Having to work when you’re rich is also lame,” Jeff felt the need to point out.

“I’m sure Bronwyn appreciates the fact that you can afford to feed her. Now, go fix all of the CDs you misfiled.”

“Who even listens to CDs anymore anyway? Laaaame,” Jeff said as Sarah walked off to face off the next Buy More crisis. There was one thing to be said for her new job: it was unpredictable. The day before, she’d literally put out two fires in the break room. The day before that had been Mystery Crisper. She’d demurred on her neophyte initiation for that one, but it had been amusing to see Morgan’s face turn gray after he’d attempted to tackle the Dreaded Bottom Drawer. Even she could tell that this challenge wasn’t for the faint of heart. Today’s discovery was that Jeff Barnes didn’t believe in the alphabet, not that she was surprised.

She headed for the Nerd Herd desk, a regular hangout. Evidently Buy More rules didn’t prohibit the supervisor of the Nerd Herd from dating the assistant manager, not that anybody really cared for corporate policy. Along the way, she passed Skip Johnson, who was texting on his gold-plated cell phone, his head bobbing to only a beat he could hear. Her cell phone beeped. New text from Skip Johnson: :) watup boss?

“Not much,” she called over her shoulder. And because she was in a particularly good mood, she added, “Like what you’ve done with the ‘fro. Lookin’ stylish.”

Skip beamed and ran a hand over the fro, the plastic money signs he’d threaded in clacking against each other.

As far as the newly rich, she supposed her crew could be less subtle, but she wasn’t sure how. And to prove it, the greatest argument against subtlety ever came strolling up to her by the waffle-iron end-cap. “Hey, Ass Man?”

Sarah turned and pinned Lester with the same look she’d given Jeff not two minutes before. “Lester, what have we talked about?”

Such was the power of her stare that he shifted his feet and began to fidget with the gold-framed aviators he’d taken to wearing. His collar was unbuttoned, his tie flung behind him over one shoulder, and there was a salmon-colored sweater tied over his shoulders, but it beat the argyle socks and loafers he’d worn to work the last few days. This outfit technically didn’t violate the dress code or the rules of style. And thankfully, he’d stopped adding “Hizzle” to everybody’s names.

“Lester?” Sarah prompted when the shorter man didn’t speak for a minute.

He heaved a gusty, theatrical sigh. “Not to call you Ass Man.”

“Very good. And what were you doing just now?”

“Calling you Ass Man.”

“And what are you never going to do again?”

“Call you Ass Man.”

“Good boy. Now what was it that you wanted?”

“Monsieur Bartowski, our fearless leader, asked me to give you this.” Lester held out a folded square of paper.

Sarah took it with a raised eyebrow. Chuck had been using the Buy More minions to send her notes over the past few days, and each note usually contained some sort of code or cipher that she had to crack. In retrospect, she almost regretted telling him that she had nearly been headhunted by the CIA, as he took this spy thing to a whole new level.

Today there was no code in the letter. Sarah just raised the other eyebrow to join the first. “‘Lester, quit reading my letters to Sarah, you dirty perv?’“ she read aloud.

“Oh, whoops, wrong letter,” Lester said, and nipped the paper from her fingers as he dug hurriedly in his pocket. “I think Chuck actually wanted me to give you _this_ one.” He handed her another square and fled, muttering under his breath about how long it took to launder money and why the hell wasn’t he on his yacht right now with a buxom Hin-Jew and a desperate reality star.

Sarah decided she’d rather not know what a Hin-Jew was and opened Chuck’s second letter. There was only a drawing on the page of a stick figure—her boyfriend’s talents did not run to the artistic—rattling the bars of a cage with a speech bubble that read, “LET ME OUT!”

Sarah tucked the paper into the pocket of her skirt, smiled, and headed back to the warehouse.

Indeed, she found Chuck in the cage, hunched over the shell of a computer tower, a studious frown on his face as he tried to fix whatever problem the computer was having. Since he didn’t notice the sound of her heels approaching, Sarah took the opportunity to lean against the open cage door and watch him for a moment, studying his long-fingered hands and the way they seemed completely competent. Ellie had bullied him into a haircut for the party, so his hair was shorter than usual, but it was still curling at the ends. It made her smile.

“You know,” Chuck said without looking up, “it’s a little creepy when you watch me like that.”

Sarah smirked as she crossed the cage and hoisted herself onto the desk, idly kicking the leg of Chuck’s chair with one of her pumps. “Got your note.”

“Excellent.” Chuck checked his watch. “It only took Lester an hour and forty-five minutes this time.”

“A new record. And it had the best spy code yet.”

“Yeah?”

“I really like how the little guy is wearing prison stripes and everything.” Sarah wrinkled her nose at the state of the computer interior beside her. “Wow, dusty.”

“Yeah, Mr.,” and Chuck checked the inventory sheet next to him, “Adler doesn’t believe in a well-kept computer environment. Thankfully, I’ve almost got this fixed. I have to say, this is not cool. It’s my birthday, and I’m stuck in the cage.”

“You were the one that volunteered to work this shift,” Sarah said, smiling. “And let’s face it, at least back here you don’t have to deal with Jeff’s filing system.”

“Who’s he trying to pair the Boss up with today?”

“Today? Yanni.”

“Yanni should be so lucky.” Chuck folded his arms over his chest and looked up at Sarah. “Hey, listen, about tonight…”

“Oh, no, not again. You already promised Ellie we’re going to the party.”

“Are you sure we have to? Because I was thinking about sharing a bottle of cheap wine with a blonde and hoping to get lucky, and that sounds way better than a party full of my sister’s friends. Don’t you agree?”

“I don’t know,” Sarah said. “I’m not really into blondes.”

Chuck made a choking noise and she felt the same surge of pride she always felt whenever she coerced a laugh out of him. She smiled and stroked his hair. “We don’t have to stay the whole time,” she pointed out. “If it’s boring, we’ll cut out and do whatever you want. But I really do want to meet some of Ellie’s friends, if only to say that I know somebody outside our, uh, crew.” She looked around at the Buy More walls all around them. The green polo shirts were still over the cameras in the warehouse, a fact Chuck and Sarah had taken advantage of a couple of times after hours and most of the green shirts in the area weren’t even attempting to look busy. It had become normal to her startlingly fast.

“How come,” Chuck said, “it’s my birthday, and yet I’m the one bending to the whims of others, my sister included?”

“Because you’re a nice guy.” Sarah scooted forward to kiss him.

Chuck waggled his eyebrows at her. “A nice guy who may get to see the inside of the supply closet?”

“Play your cards right, and you may get to see a whole lot more than that. The supply closet, though? Not today. I’m off-shift. I promised I’d help Ellie decorate for the party.”

“It was worth a shot,” Chuck said, snapping his fingers. “Don’t let Ellie run you too ragged.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll save plenty of energy…for later.” Sarah dropped her voice to a husky tone, and nearly grinned when Chuck’s face went briefly glassy. Even after weeks together, it was still amazingly easy to get a reaction out of him. She bounced forward and gave him a peck before she hopped off of the desk. “Walk me to my car? You look like you could get some air.”

“Uh, yeah, definitely.” The light in Chuck’s eyes told her that she wasn’t getting away without a very thorough good-bye, not that she minded. Chuck grabbed her hand to walk her out, threading their fingers together, which earned them a few catcalls as they left, but they were both quite used to that from their coworkers. “Did you give any more thought to that idea I had last night?” Chuck asked as they walked.

Sarah was silent for a second. “You mean, about me going back to school, too?”

“It could be fun. I mean, we wouldn’t in the same classes or anything, but we could meet up for lunch on campus, and UCLA blue would really bring out your eyes.”

“I’m still thinking about it. I’d, um, I’d have to get my GED first.”

Chuck actually stopped walking. “Really?”

“Yeah, I went on the run from the CIA a couple of weeks before graduation. I don’t actually have a high school diploma.”

“Oh. But you took your SAT and everything? What’d you get?”

Sarah told him, and Chuck immediately burst out laughing. “You’re kidding!”

Alarm raced through her. “What? Why would I be kidding?”

“Oh man,” Chuck went on, as if she hadn’t spoken. “It’s fate. It has to be. We got the same score on our SATs.”

“That’s not possible,” Sarah said.

“Why not? It’s a standardized test.”

Sarah gave him a look. “That’s not possible because you’re smart,” she said, stressing the word as though it should be obvious. She left the “And I’m not” unspoken. Sure, she was clever, and fast on her feet, but she didn’t have anywhere the near the same amount of raw intelligence Chuck did. His mind never stopped working, and he seemed to be interested in _everything_.

“Hate to break it to you, Sarah, but if you got a 1540 on your SAT, you’re smart, too.” They started walking toward the front door again, and Chuck seemed genuinely excited now. “Which is even more reason to go back to school. I mean, you don’t want to work at the Buy More forever.”

“It’s a temporary thing, trust me.”

“A couple of brains like ours, and we could seriously consider world domination. Just imagine it. Chuck and Sarah, God and Goddess Emperors of the Universe.”

“How come your name is listed first?”

“Because ‘C’ comes before ‘S,’ duh. Apparently Jeff’s not the only one having problems with the alphabet today.”

“Oh, shut up,” Sarah said, laughing.

“At least keep thinking about it,” Chuck said. “I hear a college education makes it easier to rule the universe.”

“I’ll keep thinking about it,” Sarah said, though she had no idea what she would possibly go back to school for. And it wasn’t like she couldn’t afford it.

The team had decided that Chuck and Sarah would split the bounty from Boston Techtronics evenly between themselves, leaving the other nine to share out the money they had stolen from Scopes and the Diablo brothers. They were laundering their money through the Buy More, which was taking a lot of time, and Chuck’s coworkers were not exactly the most patient lot in the world. While her half of the three hundred fifty thousand, settled in an off-shore account, made her sleep easier at night, Chuck seemed to have barely noticed his—except that he seemed to like surprising her with lavish gifts. The day she’d moved in, he had bought her a huge flat-screen TV for her new apartment. She suspected that may have been a slightly selfish move on his part, since he had made the claim that he planned to spend a lot of time there. The stacks of chick flick DVDs were purely for her, though, she knew.

He finished walking her to her car. “You’re absolutely sure we can’t just go to an anonymous restaurant, get way too tipsy, and spend the rest of the evening inside?” he asked, looking pitiful.

“It’s hardly a birthday party without the birthday boy there,” Sarah said. “It’ll be fun, I promise.”

“Fine, if you insist. Have fun with my sister.” Though he said good-bye, it was several minutes before Sarah was able to escape, laughing, into her car and drive away, and she had to stop before she reached the Bartowski apartment to fix her makeup, and her blouse.

  


* * *

  


OK, maybe Chuck had had a point, but Sarah wasn’t ever going to admit that. First off, Chuck would get no small amount of pleasure out of telling her, “I told you so,” and secondly, she didn’t want to insult Ellie’s friends. She was sure they were very interesting people when she wasn’t distracted, but the problem was that she was distracted. It wasn’t the usual sexual haze distraction that only seemed to apply to Chuck and his proximity, but an actual case of nerves that couldn’t seem to be quelled, no matter how hard she tried.

She told herself it was ridiculous. That did absolutely nothing. She told herself there was no reason to be nervous, she trusted both parties implicitly. The anxiety still arose. She did her level best to keep up with the conversation Ellie was having with two of her old friends from undergrad, both of whom had been excited to meet the younger Bartowski’s new match. And Sarah was sure they were both really nice, but she had spent most of the conversation trying to unobtrusively keep Chuck, standing across the courtyard with a beer, in sight. He was talking to a short brunette woman, and with very minute that passed, Sarah grew more nervous.

This could end very, very badly.

“Sarah?” Ellie’s voice cut into her concentration and Sarah nearly jolted.

“Sorry,” she said, covering by giving all three of the others a polite smile. “My brain was wandering—it was a long day at work, I’m sorry. Go on, I’m listening.”

“Uh-huh. You’ll have to forgive Sarah,” Ellie told her friends. “She and my brother are still in that disgustingly happy new couple phase.”

“I miss those days,” the redheaded anesthesiologist on the left sighed. “Now I can barely get my boyfriend to look away from ESPN when he’s not on-call.”

This, of course, devolved into a conversation about dating doctors, and it was awhile before Sarah could politely slip away. She realized that with Chuck going back to school, she would probably be in the same position soon, as all of the women were complaining about having busy significant others, but she was too concerned with spying on Chuck and his conversant. Finally, she broke free and made her way across the courtyard under the pretense of getting another beer.

“Oh, hey, here she is,” Chuck’s voice said as Sarah bent to fish a beer out of the cooler. He appeared at her side. “Here, let me do that. It’s subarctic in there.”

“My hero,” Sarah said, and turned to face Carly. “You haven’t been telling him all of my secrets, have you?”

She almost managed to keep the very real worry out of her voice.

Carly, however, just tossed her head back and chuckled, her brunette ponytail swinging. “Don’t worry, Walker, I left all of the Vancouver stories for you to tell.”

Sarah relaxed. She and Carly had never pulled any jobs in Vancouver, but the way Chuck was looking over at them, wide-eyed, he would never believe that. “Right,” she said, most of her fears turning to smoke and drifting away. “I’m really glad you came.”

“Hey, I’m really glad your boy here invited me.”

Chuck finally retrieved the beer for Sarah and shook his hand out, no doubt to get feeling back into it. Chuck had insisted on inviting Carly to the party, overruling Sarah’s protests with a pitiful look and a pointed, “It’s my birthday, isn’t it? Don’t I get a say in the guests?” And Sarah had left Carly a message on their service, never expecting that her friend would be in town or would actually show. Much to her surprise, both had come true.

“Why don’t I let you two catch up?” Chuck said, looking quickly from one to the other. “I think I heard Morgan calling my name, and last time I ignored him, there was this horrible fiasco with the bean dip that I think Ellie would prefer never happen again.” He squeezed Sarah’s wrist before he left.

There was a second of silence as both ladies watched him go. “Wow,” Carly said.

“Yeah, Morgan and bean dip sounds like it could be bad,” Sarah said without thinking.

Carly nearly snorted beer up her nose from the sudden bout of guffawing, it looked like. But the shorter woman just coughed and said, “That’s not what I meant. I never thought I would see the day.”

“See what day?”

“Sarah Walker got religion. Amazing.”

“Happens to all of us at some point or other.” _If we’re smart, it happens before we get caught. I got lucky._

“Yeah, I suppose it does.” Carly looked around the courtyard, with its pretty mission-tiled fountain and all of the average people around. Both women knew either of them could have conned the collective group of thousands. But instead, Carly just shrugged. “Religion over a guy. Didn’t see that one coming.”

“I was already on my way out of the game. The guy thing…it just happened.”

“Well, it looks good on you.” Carly eyed her for a long time; Sarah didn’t say anything about the scrutiny. Her friend would arrive at whatever conclusions she wanted, and nothing Sarah could do or say would change that. She almost expected a derisive look, but Carly merely nodded, thoughtfully. “And you’re not going to run into any trouble with…”

“The Diablos have bigger problems to worry about,” Sarah said, reading her friend’s unspoken question. “Scopes and the others, for example. They all took plea bargains to turn on the Diablos.”

“I can’t believe it was Scopes, all this time. I always thought he was nothing but a dirty nerd.”

“Nerds can surprise you,” Sarah said, and took a sip of beer. “Ben Arnold sent flowers to apologize that he hadn’t warned me clearly enough about the whole mess, and the others have no reason to believe I would stay in L.A., so this is the last place they would look. So…I’m good.”

“I can see that. You going to forgive Ben?”

“Probably. Eventually.”

Silence fell for a long stretch. Around them, twilight had begun to set in over the party, but things were going full swing still. A stereo in the corner pumped music, and people were still gathered in groups, talking. Carly and Sarah continued to watch the crowd. “Is it okay if I drop in on you and your boy when I swing through town?” Carly asked.

Sarah turned to look at her friend. “I’d love that,” she said, meaning it.

“Don’t think I’m going to get religion or anything,” Carly warned, pointing a finger at her. “It’s not contagious, you hear me?”

“I won’t try to convert you. I’ll just be happy to see you.”

“Good. Tell your boy happy birthday for me, will you? I have a plane to catch.”

“Oh, where to?”

Carly smiled. “Better for you not to know. See you when I see you.”

“See you when I see you,” Sarah repeated, and hugged her friend good-bye. Carly strode off, vanishing into the crowd, and Sarah wondered if the other woman truly would drop by, as promised. She hoped so. She liked Chuck’s friends and her new life, but it was nice to have a friend of her own.

“I have no idea why you were so against me meeting her,” said a voice behind her, and Sarah turned to see that Chuck had sneaked up. “She’s delightful.”

“She’s one of a kind,” Sarah agreed. “What were you two talking about?”

“Our little smash and grab in Vegas. Don’t worry, I didn’t use specifics. It was kind of neat to get to talk shop with a real live con-woman—you know, you aside.”

“She says to tell you happy birthday and that she’ll be dropping in on us periodically.”

“Awesome.” Chuck looked around, but none of the other partygoers were really paying attention to the two of them. “Hey, what do you say we sneak out, go to your place, and let you have some one-on-one time with the birthday guy?” He waggled his eyebrows.

She laughed and nearly said yes on that principle alone, but Devon came rushing up to both of them. “Oh, good, you’re still here,” he said, a little out of breath. “I tried to keep him away, dude, but Morgan somehow got into the grape Jell-O, and Jeff, Lester, and Skip just arrived and they refuse to leave.”

Chuck and Sarah exchanged a glance. “Something tells me the party just got interesting,” Chuck observed, and they split up to take care of the different problems.

  


* * *

  


The addition of the Buy More nerds in full force had both thinned out the party considerably while ensuring that the party would go well into the night. And it definitely kept things interesting. At some point, the nerds tried to light the fountain on fire, and Chuck hastily removed all of the tikki torches from the courtyard. At another point, there was a conga line that even Sarah, Ellie, and Devon had been dragged into. By the time they managed to shovel the last of the nerds into Jeff’s Creepy Stalker Van, with a thankfully sober Fernando driving, it wasn’t even Chuck’s birthday any longer. Sarah figured he probably wouldn’t mind getting his present late, since they both got roped into cleaning up the courtyard with the others.

“Are you staying over tonight?” Chuck asked as they collected the ubiquitous red party cups littering the ground.

Sarah faked nonchalant. “I had a couple of beers, I probably should.”

“Excellent, that saves me from coming up with an excuse to drop by your apartment later.”

“Ha,” Sarah said, pointing at him. “As if you need an excuse.”

“It’s good to have pretences. It keeps us healthy. And thanks for the coat, by the way.” Chuck ran a hand over it now; he’d been wearing the jacket she bought all night, ever since he’d opened it before the party. It had taken some creative thinking, and a little help from Morgan, to find a jacket that exactly resembled the famous Mal Reynolds brown coat from _Firefly_ , and she couldn’t help but feel a stab of pride that she’d come up with the idea herself. “Even though you wouldn’t let me sneak away from my own birthday party for cheap sex, you’re pretty much the most amazing girlfriend on the planet.”

“Excuse me, cheap sex?”

“Sorry, sex brought on by cheap wine.” Chuck’s grin was incorrigible now. “Slip of the tongue, I swear.”

“Uh-huh. I don’t drink cheap wine, so you’d have had to find some other girlfr—” Sarah broke off when Chuck kissed her. Dimly, she heard the others cleaning up the courtyard clap and cheer, as they’d taken to doing lately. “Or not. You should probably stick with the girlfriend you have.”

“I like this plan. Sheer elegance in its simplicity.”

They finished most of the cleaning and then Ellie and Devon headed for bed, exhausted. They all had to work the next morning, Sarah knew, so they probably should have ended the party hours earlier, but all of them knew firsthand just how hard it was to move a posse of nerds that wouldn’t be budged.

She parted from Chuck at the bathroom. “I’ll be there in just a minute. Just want to, you know, wash up a bit.”

“Sure, take your time. I’ll put in a movie or something.”

“Sounds great,” Sarah said, though with what she planned, she doubted they would pay any attention. She slipped into the bathroom, glad she’d planned ahead and had stashed the bag she’d bought the day before under the sink. Buying both this part of the present and Chuck’s new coat had made her credit card give out one short scream when swiped, a new feeling for her, but she told herself it was worth it.

Nearly half an hour of primping and prepping, and she decided she hadn’t been lying. It really was worth every penny spent and Chuck, assuming he hadn’t fallen asleep, was going to love it. She was practically grinning as she donned the short trench coat. Time to give Chuck a hell of a birthday present.

She opened the bathroom door—and of course ran straight into Ellie, who had her hand poised to knock. The brunette’s eyes widened, her mouth forming an “oh” in surprise, as she took in Sarah’s garb.

“Uh.” Sarah couldn’t think of a single good thing to say, damn all of her con artist years. “Right. So this happened. G’night, Ellie.” She took off down the hallway, hoping she wasn’t flushing.

She heard Ellie’s cracking laughter and a “Good night, Sarah!” The plan was to enter Chuck’s room slowly and start teasing him, but the unexpected hiccup meant Sarah practically dived through the door to escape. Not that, she realized with dismay, it mattered. Chuck didn’t even look away from the computer when she came in.

“Hiya,” she said.

He barely glanced her way. “Hey! Sorry, I forgot to put the movie in, but if you give me two seconds, I’ll be happy to start one up. Just a minute.”

“No problem.” Sarah stayed leaning against the door, not sexily, just because she was about to shake with laughter over her encounter with Ellie. “What’re you up to, Chuck?”

“Just trying to remember what my hero kept in his satchel.”

“Um, was that a euphemism?”

Chuck laughed. “No, back at Stanford, a friend and I coded this old text-based video game—and we’re nerds, I know, which is the point of the story. But if I can just remember…”

If he’d been catching up with email or something important like that, like sorting out his college admissions problems, Sarah might have let it go. But she didn’t want to be ignored for some old video game. Not when she had spent the past half hour getting ready and building herself up so that she was practically already shaking with need. So she fixed a look on Chuck and reached for the tie to her trench coat.

“Hey, Chuck,” she said, pulling the coat open and deliberately letting it fall to the ground. The noise made him look over; he froze, his eyes wide. “Are you going to play some video game all night…” She ran a hand down her side, and nearly snickered at the way his eyes tracked the movement. The La Perla she’d picked up special for him revealed just as much as it concealed. “Or are you going to unwrap…your gift?”

Chuck’s fingers spasmed on the keyboard. “That,” he said in a strangled voice, “is an excellent question.” He banged his elbow against the keyboard as he rose, and cursed, but evidently seemed to forget the pain quickly, as he all but tackled her. “This is like the best birthday present ever.”

“I’m glad you approve,” Sarah said, chuckling as his hands began to roam and they did their customary stumble toward the bed. Neither of them paid a lick of attention to the computer monitor, which temporarily showed the string of characters Chuck had accidentally entered with his elbow. The screen flickered twice and then red text appeared: “INCORRECT. DELETING IN 3…2…1…”

By the time the screen cut to black, neither Chuck nor Sarah noticed or gave a damn, too wrapped up in each other to care.

### The End


End file.
